india

Updated: Feb 17, 2019 10:13 IST

Thousands of teary-eyed villagers joined the funeral processions of slain CRPF jawans Prasanna Kumar Sahu and Manoj Behera as their mortal remains reached home Saturday evening, two days after they were killed in the suicide bomb attack at Pulwama in Jammu and Kashmir.

The bodies of CRPF constables Manoj Behera (33) and Prasanna Sahu (48) draped in tricolours arrived at Ratanpur and Parisikhara villages respectively hours after they landed at Biju Patnaik International airport in Bhubaneswar.

Villagers with flowers in their hands lined up on both sides of the road and raised anti-Pakistan slogans.

The mortal remains of the jawans were given guard of honour by Odisha police at the cremation ground.

For the last two days, over 1,200 jawans of 4th Battalion of CRPF in Rayagada district have not touched food as a tribute to constable Prasanna Kumar Sahu. Sahu was a part of the battalion till June 25, 2018 when he was transferred to Srinagar.

“We treated him as our teacher in anti-Maoist combing operations for battle tactics. The terrorists who killed him will receive an appropriate answer at the right time for their cowardice,” said Lala Bhoi, a jawan.

Behera is survived by his wife Itilata, 1-year-old daughter and parents while Sahu is survived by his wife Meena and two teenage children — Roni and Jagan.

In Parisikhara village of Jagatsinghpur district, Roni Sahu, daughter of Prasanna Sahu, while trying to control her tears, saluted her father. “I know I can never see my father again. But I am feeling proud of my father. India should give strong reply to Pakistan,” said Roni.

In Ratanpur village, sister-in-law of Manoj Behera said India should retaliate in such a way that people of Pakistan would remember. “The country that had made us cry should cry as much. That’s our fervent request to the government,” she said.

In Bhubaneswar, chief minister Naveen Patnaik and Union petroleum minister Dharmendra Pradhan paid floral tributes to the mortal remains of the jawans.

Patnaik increased the ex-gratia from Rs 10 lakh to Rs 25 lakh for the kin of Behera and Sahu and announced that the state government would bear the educational expenses of their children.

The schools where the two jawans studied would be named after them and the native villages will be made model panchayats, he said.

On Saturday, all educational institutions of Odisha observed two minutes’ silence at 11 am in memory of the CRPF jawans.