LUCKNOW: While the tiny tots of Pulwama martyr Shyam Babu are too small to understand the reason for the prolonged absence of their father, they keep asking their mother Ruby about him. The family of Constable Pankaj Tripathi has not been able to gather itself after the irreparable loss a year ago in Pulwama.
The attack had left the nation shell shocked with the martyrdom of 44 CRPF jawans.
Over a dozen sons of Uttar Pradesh had made the supreme sacrifice in the dastardly terror attack on their convoy in Pulwama. Constable Shyam Babu and Constable Pankaj Tripathi were two of them.
The government had made promises galore to the shattered families a year ago. Some have been kept but some remain to be fulfilled.
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While Shyam Babu belonged to Rangwa village under Derapur Tehsil in Kanpur Dehat, Constable Pankaj Tripathi hailed from Harpur Belia village under Pharenda area in Maharajganj.
“Now we have started going to school, we have become good children, but papa doesn’t come. Mumma, when will he come? We are going to our village, will we meet him there? Is he angry with me?,” 5-year-old Ayush, fires a flurry of questions on his mother Ruby, wife of martyr Shyam Babu.
“The vacuum created by his death will always be there ...in my life and in my children’s life. I will never be able to move on but have to nurture my five-year-old son and a year-old daughter Ayushi,” says Ruby with a choked voice.
She has been given a job as per the promise made a year ago. “Life is so difficult without him. It will never be the same,” says Ruby who has moved to Akbarpur with the memories of her martyred husband and her two children leaving the parents-in-law behind in the village.
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Similarly, the family of martyr Pankaj Tripathi is still gathering itself. “It has been a year of pain, unending grief and tears for us. No sop could make up for our loss,” says Om Prakash Tripathi, father of martyr Pankaj Tripathi.
On the promises made to them a year ago, Om Prakash says, “It is not that no promise has been fulfilled. We have got the financial help promised to us by the government but many others who had made similar promises to us have gone elusive.”
Soon his eyes well up with the pain which perhaps will never ebb. “The promise of developing a play ground in the memory of my son is yet to be fulfilled. However, the land has been identified and a gate has been put up at the spot,” he says adding that crossing which had to be named after his son is yet to be
done and the park adjacent to the residence is yet to be named after him.
While Pankaj’s mother Sushila consoles herself by trying to find a reflection of her martyred son in her grandson Prateek, brother Shubham paid tribute to his brother by organising a mela (fair) in his memory in the ancestral village.
“Today, my brother’s statue will be unveiled to pay him respect and tribute on his first death anniversary,” says Shubham.