BENGALURU: “Brijesh spoke to me last Sunday, July 14, at 9.30 am. He said he had just come down (from the higher reaches where militants are holed up) and that he had been asked to go back to the hills following an intelligence input. He said he would be leaving soon and I asked him to be careful,” Col Bhuwanesh Thapa (R), father of Captain Brijesh Thapa who died in a gunfight with terrorists in J&K’s Doda district on Monday night, told this newspaper over the telephone.
Col Thapa learnt about the loss of his son at 10.45 pm on Monday from the Army. “The CO called me and said that Brijesh fought well but unfortunately we lost him. As a former Army officer and father, I always stressed upon Brijesh on how to operate in insurgency-hit areas each time he spoke to me,” the distraught but proud father said.
“I am proud of Brijesh. He fought from the front and gave up his life for the country. He didn’t run away. It’s a hard climb of six to seven hours, where they had to go up,” said Col Thapa.
Brijesh is survived by his parents and an elder sister. “He was born in the military hospital in Jalandhar in January 1997. He had applied for short service commission (SSC) and joined the Army as an officer in September 2019 after completing BTech in computer science,” he added. Capt Brijesh’s mortal remains will be brought on Wednesday to his hometown Darjeeling.