Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama met Assam Rifles trooper Naren Chandra Das after 58 years in 2017, and invited him as a guest of His Holiness at the Tibetan Government-in-Exile headquarters in Himachal Pradesh’s Mcleodganj the following year

SHILLONG: Naren Chandra Das, the retired havildar of Assam Rifles who escorted the Tibetan spiritual leader Dalai Lama in India in 1959, was laid to rest on Wednesday in Assam’s Lokra where he lived after retiring from the force. He was 83.

Naren Chandra Das was the lone surviving warrior of the Assam Rifles among a band of seven bravehearts who had successfully escorted and accompanied His Holiness Dalai Lama to Indian soil in 1959, said AR director general Lt Gen PC Nair.

Das was 22 when he was posted at Lungla post near the China border when the assignment came his way. Narendra Chandra Das was a rifleman of the 9 Platoon of 5 Assam Rifles back then.

“Late Havildar Naren Chandra Das was the lone surviving warrior of the Assam Rifles among a band of seven Bravehearts who had successfully escorted and accompanied His Holiness Dalai Lama to Indian Soil in 1959,” Assam Rifles director general Lt Gen PC Nair said in a message on his death.

“His valiant deeds and indomitable warrior spirit continues to inspire the scores of young sentinels of the northeast. I, on behalf of the Assam Rifles family pray to Almighty God that the departed soul rests in everlasting peace,” the Assam Rifles chief said.

“Guards of Assam Rifles Platoon no. 9 had brought the Dalai Lama from Zuthangbo and handed him over to five of us at Shakti. We brought him to Lungla from where he was escorted on his onward journey to Tawang by another group of guards,” Naren Chandra Das recalled after he came face-to-face with the Dalai Lama at an event in Assam’s Guwahati on April 2, 2017.

The Tibetan spiritual leader thanked Das, and invited him as a guest of His Holiness at the Tibetan Government-in-Exile headquarters in Mcleodganj, Himachal Pradesh, the following year to an event commemorating the start of the Tibetan spiritual leader’s 60th year in exile and to thank India.