Jul 18, 2024 07:57 PM IST
His mortal remains reached Darjeeling town at 3.30pm, where thousands paid their tribute. The body was then taken to Ging, his ancestral home, where the funeral is planned on Friday with military honour
Siliguri: Thousands of people lined up on either side of the road leading to Ging Tea Garden in the hills of Darjeeling in West Bengal to pay their last respects to martyred Indian army captain Brijesh Thapa as his mortal remains reached his ancestral village on Thursday.
The 27-year-old Indian army captain was killed in an exchange of fire with terrorists in Jammu’s Doda on Monday.
On Thursday, the mortal remains, which were kept at the morgue of the army’s 158 base hospital near Siliguri in north Bengal, reached Ging at 5pm.
It reached Darjeeling town at 3.30pm, where thousands paid their tribute. The body was then taken to Ging, his ancestral home, where the funeral is planned on Friday with military honour.
It took more than eight hours for the convoy, carrying his mortal remains, to reach the village as it stopped all along the way to pay their respect. Usually, it takes around three and a half hours to reach Ging.
Thousands of people thronged both sides of the roads at places, including Salbari, Sukna, Kurseong, Sonada and Darjeeling as they shouted “Capt Brijesh Thapa amar raho (long live Capt Brijesh Thapa) and Pakistan Murdabad” slogans.
Leaders and supporters of various political parties also waited for hours to bid adieu to their hero who died while fighting for the nation.
Capt Thapa joined the army in 2019 after clearing the Combined Defence Service examination in 2018. He was a BTech graduate and followed the footsteps of his father Col (retd) Bhuwanesh Thapa, and his grandfather major Nar Bahadur Thapa.
Capt Thapa was originally posted with the 145 Army Air Defence. In the last two years, he was temporarily on extra regimental duty and was the company commander of the 10 Rashtriya Rifles.
Thapa and three more soldiers were killed in the latest wave of attacks on the Indian Army by terrorists in the forests of Doda district in Jammu on Monday night.
The attack is the 11th Jammu this year, in which 11 security personnel and 11 civilians have been killed while five terrorists have been gunned down in operations carried out by the security forces and the army.
