This was Col Sood’s last fortnight in Kashmir

The 39-year-old Commanding Officer of the 18 Rashtriya Rifles (RR) was killed in a separatist ambush in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kupwara district on Tuesday. His body was brought here on Wednesday.

“He has left us alone,” cries his mother Prabha Sood as others around try to console her. The room breaks into sobs when the mother remembers her brave son. “Nothing is left now. Only memories remain.”

A telephone call at 6.30 am brought home the sad news. “I got a call from Neeraj’s father-in-law. He told me that Neeraj was injured and critical,” says the mother. Some time later,another call came from Kashmir. “I never knew I would hear the news of his death. How can I believe my son is dead?”

Sood was the younger of her two sons. “He was full of life. He was courageous,” says brother Pankaj,a government officer. Col Sood was posted in Kashmir for the last five years. “He spent a total of eight years in Kashmir,” says Pankaj.

Col Sood is survived by wife Preeti Sood and 11-year-old daughter Mishika,a student of the Army School in Srinagar. When the two reached their home at Hari Nagar at 6 pm,there was silence everywhere. Preeti kept crying silently and hugging her mother-in-law as Mishika broke into sobs. “I have never seen Mishika cry,” says her cousin Poorva.

“Neeraj always wanted to join the Army. Ab beta chala gaya (My son is gone),” says his father,a former Military Engineers Services (MES) staffer who has served in Kashmir. “We were around 10 when our father was posted there,” says Pankaj. “We were surrounded by an Army atmosphere,that might have inspired him,” he says,adding that his uncle was also in the Army.

Col Sood did his schooling from a Kendriya Vidyalaya in New Delhi and joined the National Defence Academy (NDA) and the later the Indian Military Academy (IMA). He was commissioned in the Army in 1992 and posted in Amritsar,Jaipur,Ferozepur,Northeast and Kashmir. He married Preeti in 1998.

“He spoke to his wife just 15 minutes before he was killed,” says one of the relatives who went to the airport to receive the body. “He was playing table tennis when he was informed about the operation.”

“We are in grief,but proud of our son,” says the father. “The government should take steps to stop terrorism. I have lost my son. If they don’t do something our sons will keep dying,” says his mother,before adding: “Nothing can come back now. He won’t come back to me now to eat homemade rotis…”