Wayanad: When V V Vasanthakumar returned to resume duty after a week's leave, little did his family know that the paramilitary personnel will not come back alive. The hawildar was one of the lives lost when a suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a Central Reserve Police Force bus in Kashmir's Pulwama district on Thursday.
He had called up his mother two hours before the fatal blast. "It's very cold here, Amma...," he had told his mother.
Vasanthakumar, a native of Lakkidi in Wayanad district, joined the CRPF in 2001 after completing pre-degree. He was deputed in Punjab until he was promoted as a hawildar last month. He came home on February 2 before he left for Kashmir to take up his new assignment.
He was the only son of Vasudevan-Shantha couple. Wife Sheena is a temporary employee at the Kerala Veterinary and Animal Sciences University. Anamika and Amardeep are their children. His father, Vasudevan, had died eight months ago.
Vasanthakumar's death was confirmed by top officers to the family on Friday morning.
His body would be flown to the Karipur airport near Kozhikode around 2.55 pm on Saturday, the district administration said on their Facebook page.
"Mortal Remains will then be taken to Wayanad and homage will be paid at Govt LPS, Lakkidi, Wayanad. Funeral will be held at Mukkamkunnu in Thrikkaipeta village with state honour," it said.
The public can pay homage to Vasanthakumar at the Lakkidi Lower Primary School on Saturday.
At least 40 CRPF personnel were killed on Thursday in one of the deadliest terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir when a Pakistan-based Jaish-e-Mohammad suicide bomber rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into their bus.
More than 2,500 CRPF personnel, many of them returning from leave to rejoin duty in the Valley, were travelling in the convoy of 78 vehicles when they were ambushed on the Srinagar-Jammu highway at Latoomode in Awantipora in south Kashmir.
