Grenade snuffs out lives of before they were to go home

Pandey and his friends were in track suits, when the incident happened. At around 11.15 am, they were returning from an inaugural function of a inter-battalion handball tournament when a militant threw a grenade straight into the vehicle.

“There were five men in the back of the three-ton vehicle. I was sitting in the front seat, next to the driver when there was massive blast inside inside the vehicle,” said Havaldar D F Kerketta. “We did not even switch the engine off but jumped down and took position, apprehending fire from the militants. There was blood all around.”

Sepoy T Christopher of Tamil Nadu was Panday’s close friend and a fellow player. “Pandey jumped out of the vehicle and called me. He could only go three steps and then collapsed.”

The men and officers of 92 battalion had not eaten anything since the incident. They had lost a friend and colleague. “We live with these men. In fact they are our family,” said a officer. Christopher, however, had a much more tragic story to tell. “Pandey was preparing for a two-month long holiday,” he said. “His bride was scheduled to come to his village next month.” Pandey had been married two years but had not met his bride yet.

The other casualty was Imtiyaz Ahmad of Baliyan, Uttar Pradesh. A candle has been lit in the small tent, where his body is lying.

“He was my roommate here. He was fresh to the force and had been recruited only in 1997,” said Satwinder Singh, a constable from Jalandhar. “We had gone out together in the morning to make a phone call. He called his mother and told her he will be there in a few days. He was yet to get married and was to get engaged during this vacation.”

Another sepoy, Jagdish Prasad of Gorakhpur said that Imtiyaz had purchased Kashmiri shawls for his mother. “He was desperately looking forward to his leave,” he said.