The body of CRPF personnel Pintu Kumar Singh, killed in Jammu and Kashmir’s Kupwara district on Friday during an anti-terrorist operation, was brought to Patna airport on Sunday morning. However, not a single minister from the National Democratic Alliance arrived to receive the body as they were occupied with the massive “Sankalp” rally being held in Bihar’s capital, where Prime Minister Narendra Modi was scheduled to address a rally.
It was at this rally at Patna’s Gandhi Maidan that Modi kick-started the NDA government’s poll campaign in the state for the 2019 Lok Sabha elections.
According to reports, district magistrate Kumar Ravi, senior police officer Garima Mallick, top officers of the Central Reserve Police Force, Bihar Congress chief Madan Mohan Jha were at the airport to receive Singh’s body.
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“It’s very unfortunate that chief minister Nitish Kumar did not bother to come to pay his last respect,” NDTV quoted Sanjay Singh, uncle of the CRPF inspector who was from Dhanchakki village in Begusarai, 130 km from Patna.
Sources said that inspector Pintu Kumar Singh was martyred when the security forces went to retrieve the bodies of the militants, one of the two militants who was earlier believed to be dead opened fire indiscriminately.
The encounter in Kupwara’s Handwara area ended on Sunday after a 56-hour gunfight in Babagund village of Langate. Two policemen, three CRPF jawans and a civilian, besides two militants, were killed in the encounter.
