"Do not come up, I will handle them", these were probably the last words which Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan told his men as he was hit by bullets while engaging terrorists inside the Taj.

"Major Unnikrishnan was rescuing an injured commando when he was hit," Director-General of NSG J K Dutt said after he announced mission accomplished at the Taj and quoted the slain major as telling his crack team, "Do not come up, I will handle them".

"During the operation, when an commando got injured Unnikrishnan arranged for his evacuation and started chasing the terrorists himself," a senior National Security Guards (NSG) official said.

The terrorists escaped to another floor of the hotel and during the chase Unnikrishnan was seriously injured and succumbed to his injuries, the official said.

It was Unnikrishnan's second deputation with the elite NSG force.

Unnnikrishnan was commissioned in the 7th Bihar Regiment of the Army in 1999 and he first served the NSG during 1996-99 and again came back to it's 51 Special Action Group (SAG) in January 2007.

The 31-year-old officer was the lone son of his parents who hailed from Bangalore.

The other braveheart, Havildar Gajender Singh, was a specialist in heli-borne operations.

"Gajender Singh was chosen for the Nariman House operation as he qualified for the job extremely well. He was leading the slithering act and its follow up action," the NSG official said while paying homage to the slain commandos at the NSG headquarters in the national capital.

"While clearing the fourth floor of the Jewish residential complex, Singh spotted a terrorist fleeing into a room and engaged him by fire. As he closed on the militant, he was hit by grenade splinters unmindful of the injuries, he moved forward and then came under a hail of bullets," another official said.

... contd.