SHAHEED

Rifleman Yogendra Singh

"I'm going home soon"

He did. But in a coffin, escorted by mate Joginder to his village in Johragaon, near Aligarh. He died while stalking militants in Kupwara forests.

Yogendra was to get married this June 30. All his mother could say as she clutched her son's coffin was: "Tu to baraat la raha tha. Yeh teri baraat hai?" (You were going to bring a baraat. Is this it). An aggrieved grandfather stroked his hair fondly, saying: "Arre, mera bahadur bachcha." Father Niranjan Singh is heartbroken, as are his three sisters and a brother. Yogendra was their lifeline. But he was also the brave son of a brave mother, who'd written to his mentor saying: "Tell mother, I'm going to observe the dharma of a kshatriya."

Rifleman Yogendra Singh, 23, of Rajputana Rifles was looking forward to coming home. It had been a long journey. From grinding poverty, from that kutcha brick house in Johragaon near Aligarh in Uttar Pradesh to the proud certitude of this uniformed self- assuredness in Kargil. Now there was much to look forward to: a future, a bride this June 30 when he would return home to the admiring gaze of his peers. To marry in style, build that pucca house... That June 7 morning at Kupwara he walked up to fellow rifleman and village neighbour Joginder Singh-"Tell me if you want to send anything home. I'm going soon." Next day, at 3.30 am, Joginder and he were part of a patrol stalking militants in the Kupwara forests. The early morning calm was shattered by a hail of machine-gun fire. Joginder saw Yogendra eerily lit up by the muzzle flashes, spin and fall. He took seven bullets in his chest and side even as he fired back at the flash. By the time they brought him down the mountain, he was dead. So was his future. And the hopes of a desperately poor family whose sole moral and financial anchor he'd been over the last two years. June 10. En route to Aligarh, Joginder, escorting Yogendra on his last journey home, is numb, dazed. "He wanted to carry something for me. Now I'm carrying him home...," he trails off.