Sahibganj (Jharkhand):
Kundan Kumar Ojha, blessed with a daughter just 17 days ago, had promised his mother by phone that he would be home as soon as he was on leave.
It was the last time his family heard of the 28-year-old soldier, one of 20 soldiers killed in a violent clash with Chinese troops in the Galwan Valley in eastern Ladakh on Monday evening.
Second of the four children of farmer Ravi Shankar Ojha and Bhawani Devi from the village of Dihari in the Sahibganj district, he joined the army in 2011 in Danapur. The young man had tied the knot a year and a half ago.
“Abhi in Ladakh mein bani, aur chhuti mili taab betiki dekhe aai ” (I am in Ladakh now, will come from my departure)”, said his last words to Bhawani Devi on June 7, the cousin of brave heart Prabhat Dit Kumar .
Mr. Ojha’s parents were too overwhelmed with emotion to even speak.
“He always had this” junoon “(passion) to join the Indian army. He woke up at 3 am to start his daily exercises as part of his preparations,” said his cousin in a strangled voice.
Monday’s clash, the largest confrontation between the two armies since the 1967 clashes in Nathu La, greatly aggravated the already unstable border impasse in the Ladakh region.
