Body of martyred CRPF Jawan Ashish Kumar Singh, 27, was cremated at his village Garnaha under Sadar police station in Garhwa in the presence of hundreds of people with State honours.
Singh was among the jawans who got killed in Naxal attack that took place at Sukma in Chhattisgarh on Monday.
He was to come home on leave on April 30, but his family got the news of his martyrdom on Monday following which his wife Asha Devi was getting unconscious again and again.
Garhwa DC, SP and some senior officers of CRPF accompanied the body to his residence in Garnaha where it was cremated late in the evening after his elder brother reached there from Chandigarh.
“The body reached Garhwa at around 3:45 pm following which it was kept at the police lines. The district administration and the officers of CRPF paid tribute to the martyr. It was then taken to his villager Garnaha where was cremated after his elder brother reached,” said Garhwa DC Neha Arora.
The officers who paid tribute to Singh included DC Neha Arora, SP Sri Alok, CRPF Commandant Kailash Arya, 2nd Commandant of CRPF Shailendra Singh and other officers of the district administration.
The villagers said that they were proud of Singh who put his life for the country. He was a soft spoken person who never hurt anybody in his life, they said.
“They were two brothers, who, after the death of their parents made their careers on their own through hard work and joined Para Military Forces, the elder one joined ITBP while the younger one joined CRPF in the year 2010. He was quite popular in the village due to his good conduct and behavior. We are proud of him,” said a villager. Singh lost his father when he was five years of age, he added.
After doing matriculation, Singh joined CRPF in the year 2010. He has two sons, one of five and the other one of three years of age. The elder one is Anukalp while the younger one is Aaro. Singh, according to the villagers, last time had come home to attend the funeral of his grandfather in January this year and had returned immediately to join his duty.
At least 26 CRPF soldiers were killed and another half-a-dozen of them were injured in a Maoist ambush in the Sukma district of Chhattisgarh on Monday. Seven other soldiers are also believed to have gone missing after the incident.
The 99-member CRPF team was carrying out a sanitization exercise for an under-construction road in the area. Sukma is part of south Bastar, which for decades has suffered the Maoist menace.
The ambush took place on Monday afternoon at around 1 PM in Burkhapal in Sukhma by Maoists said to be more than 300 in numbers, including women cadres.
Chief Minister Raghubar Das, criticising the Naxal attack on CRPF strongly on Tuesday, announced ex-gratia of Rs 5 lakh for the martyr’s family.