Both dead, both in 20s and worlds apart

Bindu came from a family which had overcome the handicaps of its tribal origin and entered the mainstream. Now it has become a part of the tribal folklore of the region.

Bindu, the headstrong daughter of Shivnath and Gindiya Kumre, never told her family she was posted in the troubled Valley. For them she was in distant Delhi but they had no address. She had come here on leave last month and no one could have guessed that she would return so soon amidst booming of the guns and sounding of the last post.

Tens of thousands of people lined the streets from the Madhya Pradesh border near Gopalganj, where state transport minister Harwant Singh received the body brought from Nagpur airport. “In 86 years of my life, I have not seen such a sea of humanity in this area,” said an overwhelmed Pannalal Sahu. Shops remained closed at Barghat, a tehsil near Jawarkathi, and placards paying tributes to Bindu hung on lampposts. “With the crowds surging to have a look at the coffin draped in the tricolour, it took three hours to cover the last 30-km stretch up to the village,” said Bindu’s cousin, S S Kumre, who is district manager at Village Industries at Vidisha.

And in a telling comment on the politicians of the state, no MLA, MP or minister was present at the funeral. A helipad constructed at the village for VIPs to arrive was never used. Only after people gheraoed Collector Vijay Singh Niranjan on Wednesday night did the administration step in to raise a platform for the pyre.

This for a family that’s no stranger to the forces. Bindu’s elder brother, Rameshwar, is a CRPF constable at Durg while her elder sister Jaswanti’s husband, Yogendra, is a BSF jawan. Her 61-year-old father Shivnath, who can’t forget his daughter’s affection for him — she bought him a motorcyle recently so that he won’t have a problem going to the fields — was pensive: “She always refused to get married. So we let her do what she wanted to after she did her HSSC.”

“As a child, she used to dress up like a boy and mingle with them. She was quite adventurous,” said Shyam Singh Kumre, a deputy secretary in the state PWD. Bindu’s maternal uncle, Ranjit Singh, remembers: “When she became a soldier in 1997, none of us was surprised. She always said there was nothing that wasn’t possible.” And she lived up to her words.

Bindu was hit by a barrage of bullets fired by the militants while trying to protect her two colleagues inside the X-ray room at the entrance of the airport. “She saved us. She was so brave. She had been critically wounded in the shootout but insisted everything was alright,” said Tarawati Boro, a constable from Assam who was with Kumre when the militants attacked.

“We were four constables and a head constable on duty. We were all inside the room, where women passengers would come to get frisked, when the first gunshots were fired outside,” Tarawati recalled. “Our head constable, Jayanti Parihar, had reached for her bulletproof vest when she was hit in the arm and fell down. Then a bullet hit Bindu and she fell on us to give us cover, saving our lives. She had been hit in her belly and foot and there was blood everywhere.”

Outside the man who used to operate the X-ray machine was dead and a constable had been hit. “All the men had been hit by bullets. Some were dead and others injured,” recalled Tarawati.

Bindu had been on duty despite a fracture in her hand. Company havaldar Major Jeevanti Joshi said “she had spoken to me in the morning that day and was planning to go on leave. The fracture had been giving her a lot of trouble but she insisted on working.”

Company commander Inspector Abilas Singh is proud of his soldiers. “The girls are as good as any male soldier”. There are three women companies of the CRPF camping in the building of the youth hostel near Bakhshi Stadium here. “They are equally trained and efficient in combat.”

Bindu, of course, wanted to see action. “She abhorred the idea of being posted to a peaceful place. She used to say she wanted to do something for the country,” said Bindu’s brother-in-law, Narendra Singh Nagbhire, who is an assistant labour commissioner at Nagpur. Motilal Verma, father of Bindu’s colleague and best friend Santosh Verma, who was witness to the fidayeen attack, recalls her commitment: “When Santosh was in two minds over going to Chennai for training, it was Bindu who gave us the courage by promising to take care of our daughter.” Santosh’s parents, with their shocked daughter, today came all the way from Neemuch for the funeral.

When Bindu’s elder brother, Baijnath, lit the pyre, the slogan Har ma Ki beti kaisi ho, Bindu Kumre jaisi ho rent the air.