In 1995, Major left Engineering and joined NDA to pursue his dream. During his NDA training, he excelled in multiple activities including swimming, boxing and horse riding.
Under the training of Col Bhawani Singh, became the champion of horse riding. He was also a winner in Boxing under feather weight category.
After completing his academics studies in NDA, he joined IMA in 1998. Where, he was awarded the rank of Battalion Cadet Adjutant.
He got a chance to meet the then President of India K. R. Narayanan at the Rashtrapati Bhavan. On 11 December 1999 he was commissioned as Lieutenant in 5th Battalion of The Madras Regiment.
On completing 3 successful years of Military service, Major opted for the Para Special Forces and he became a trained Para Commando by joining elite 1st Para SF in June 2003.
In same year he was promoted to Captain. After which he was posted in Kashmir where he showed absolute leadership and bravery. Then he was promoted to Major in year 2005.
After that he was awarded with Sena Medal for his bravery.
In 2004, Major Mohit Sharma through extensive surveillance and the groundwork established contact with two Hizbul Mujahideen terrorists named Abu Torara and Abu Sabzar, under the alias of Iftikhar Bhatt.
With long, flowing hair and an unkempt beard reaching down to his neck, Major Mohit was able to camouflage himself to blend into the terror outfit and its terrorist members.
When asked why he wanted to fight the Indian army, Major Mohit Sharma, staying true to his character threw the choicest expletives at the army in chaste Kashmiri, whom he held responsible for his brother’s death during a stone-pelting incident. He told the duo that he wanted to avenge his brothers’ death and needed help from them.
After Torara and Sabzar cross-checked the story, they arranged for a consignment of grenades and other terrorists for the operation. Slowly and gradually, Major Mohit won the trust of the terrorists and was eventually assigned with the choice to cross over the LoC.
The Hizbul terrorists assigned him the task to carry out a strike on one of the Indian outposts, whose decoy hand-drawn map of army movement was presented to them was Major Mohit himself.
However, owing to the sharpness and the meticulousness of the plan, Torara began having second thoughts. Major Sharma sensed the operation could go sideways and quickly reacted by saying, “If you have any doubts about me, kill me.” While dropping his Ak-47 rifle, he said, “You cannot do this if you don’t trust me. So you have no choice but to kill me now.”
Throwing the two Hizbul terrorists into confusion, Major Mohit seized the opportunity, flung out his loaded 9-mm pistol and shot both of them dead. Two to the chest, one to the head – just how the special forces are trained to do.
Discussing about his Last Operation, On 21 March 2009, after receiving information of presence of some infiltrating terrorists in dense Haphruda Forest, Major planned meticulously and led his commandos in tracking them. On observing suspicious movement, he alerted his scouts but terrorists fired from three directions indiscriminately. In the heavy exchange of fire, four commandos were wounded immediately.
With complete disregard to his safety, he crawled and recovered two soldiers to safety. Unmindful of the overwhelming fire, he threw grenades and killed two terrorists but was shot in the chest. In the brief respite that followed, he kept directing his commandos, in spite of serious injuries.
Sensing further danger to his comrades, he charged in a daring close quarter combat killing two more terrorists and attained martyrdom fighting for his motherland in the finest traditions of Indian Army
For this Supreme Sacrifice he was awarded with the nation's highest peace time gallantry award ‘Ashok Chakra’ on January 26, 2010.
