Thousands descended on Gudigere Colony near Maddur on Saturday to say goodbye to Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) jawan H. Guru, who died in a terror attack at Pulwama of Kashmir Valley on Thursday. The mortal remains of the 33-year-old soldier were consigned to flames at Mellahalli, near his native village, with full State and military honours.
An estimated 55,000 people attended as his brother, H. Madhu, lit the pyre in the presence of his parents Honnaiah and Chikkolamma, his pregnant wife Kalavathi, and several State leaders at 8.35 p.m. Ms. Kalavathi bid adieu to her husband with a salute and a cry of “Bharat Mata ki jai”. Slogans such as “Guru amar rahe” reverberated in the air when the last rites were performed.
As the body was brought to his native village from Bengaluru, thousands gathered en route to pay their respects, forcing the convoy to make several stops and delaying the time of arrival. Although the truck reached Ramanagaram at 2.45 p.m., from there it took nearly four hours to traverse the remaining distance of about 50 km. There were heart-rending scenes as the coffin, draped in the tricolour, was alighted from the truck at the village.
According to sources, the plan was to keep the jawan’s mortal remains for an hour outside his residence and for two hours at Mellahalli, to allow people to pay their last respects. Following the delayed arrival, the remains were kept on display for only a few minutes at Gudigere Colony, for the family to perform a puja.
Among those who paid respects to the soldier were Chief Minister H.D. Kumaraswamy, Deputy Chief Minister G. Parameshwara, Ministers C.S. Puttaraju, D.C. Thammanna, and S.R. Mahesh, Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee president Dinesh Gundu Rao, former Chief Ministers D.V. Sadananda Gowda and S.M. Krishna, Lok Sabha members Shobha Karandlaje and Pratap Simha, and actor-activist Prakash Raj.
