Coonoor Crash: ‘Son earned his name, now will send his wife to serve in forces’

Kamla Devi’s husband Randhir Singh Rao is a former Navy person. Their other child, Abhita Rao, is a Deputy Commandant in the Coast Guard with the Indian Navy. Abhita’s husband, Captain Satyendra Malik, is a doctor with the Army. The extended family, too, is dotted with people who are, or have been, in the armed forces.

“Bahut achi kamai kare hai mere bete ne (My son has earned his name),” Devi tells reporters in Jhunjhunu’s Ghardana Khurd village.  Now, she says, she will send her daughter-in-law to serve in the armed forces. Kuldeep had married Meerut’s Yashwani Dhaka in November 2019.

Parents Randhir and Kamla live in Jaipur, from where they reached the family’s ancestral village on Thursday. The former officer’s last rites will be conducted here Friday.

“The village has lost its laadla so we have all decided to install a memorial in the centre of the village,” said former pradhan Harpal.