Bond of life and last rites - slain jawan & wife who killed self cremated together

AMIT UKIL

An armyman salutes the bodies of Adwaita Nandi (right) and his wife Piu during the cremation in Bankura on Thursday. Picture by Sujata Khan Panchmura (Bankura), June 27: If marriage brought Sushil Nandi and Dinabandhu Dey together a year and a half ago, death did so today — for the last rites of their children. The death of Sepoy Adwaita Nandi at the hands of militants in Kashmir and the subsequent suicide of his wife Piu in Bengal paved the way for two funerals side by side on the banks of the Joypanda river in Bankura this evening. Sushil, 56, the father of Adwaita, has not spoken much since his son’s death reached him after Monday’s encounter in Kashmir on the eve of the Prime Minister’s visit there. Since Tuesday, the father, who has been ailing since his wife’s death three years ago, had been holding on to a group photo of his son’s battalion. Today, after the coffin was taken off a truck and placed on a clearing on the riverbank 1.5km from the Nandis’ house, the army wanted Sushil to fulfil one more task. Requested by an officer to identify his son, Sushil pointed to a birthmark on his son’s left leg. Adwaita Nandi Dinabandhu was standing nearby and watching. Next to the pyre of Adwaita, 28, was that of his wife and Dinabandhu’s daugher, Piu, 22. Dinabandhu appeared to be in shock while his wife Pratima was inconsolable. Unable to bear the shock of her husband’s death, Piu had set herself on fire on Tuesday night and succumbed to burns the next morning. Over 6,000 people from Panchmura and neighbouring villages turned up to pay tribute to Adwaita, who was part of the 35 Rashtriya Rifles. Simultaneous funerals of husband and wife are not common and they usually convey the universal message of untimely death caused by unnatural factors. “As it is, the death of our jamai (Adwaita) came as a shock but we did not expect Piu to take this drastic step,” said Suren Manna, the husband of an aunt of Piu. The coffin with the jawan’s body arrived by road from Calcutta via Panagarh a little before 5pm. It was flown in from Srinagar in the morning and taken to Command Hospital, where a guard of honour was presented. The body was then taken to the army base at Panagarh, where tributes were paid by the commandant. Soon after the couple’s bodies were placed side by side — one draped in the Tricolour, the other with wreaths — the crowd surged forward to get a glimpse. “The army contingent that accompanied the body gave a three-volley gun salute. We also had an arrangement for a gun salute but that was not required,” said Bankura police chief Mukesh Kumar who was in the village to oversee arrangements. The state government was represented by minister for women and child development Shyamapada Mukherjee.