When Bablu Santra called wife Mita on Thursday morning, it seemed like any other day, another customary call.
The 38-year-old CRPF head constable from Bauria in Howrah told Mita he was leaving with other troopers for Srinagar.
“Raakchhi (ending the call),” he said before hanging up.
The next call on Mita’s mobile came on Friday morning. This time, it was a senior commandant of Bablu’s CRPF battalion on the line. He informed her that her husband was among the 38 killed in the suicide blast in Pulwama.
Bablu and Mita have a four-year-old daughter, Piya, who joined kindergarten recently.
A family member said Bablu was last at home in December to spend a fortnight with his family on his daughter’s birthday. “He would call up everyday and speak to my Didi (Mita),” Shampa Kar, Bablu’s sister-in-law, told The Telegraph.
On Thursday evening, after some CRPF personnel called up the family seeking Mita’s number, the Santras started to fear the worst. The Friday morning call dashed all hopes.
“We heard about the attack in the evening (on Thursday). There was a faint hope at that point of time that Bablu was not among the dead. A senior commandant called up this (Friday) morning. We didn’t know what to do,” Shampa said.
A resident of Chawk Kashi village in Bauria, Bablu had joined the CRPF in 2000, after losing out on an opportunity to join India’s largest paramilitary force the year before as he was under-age then.
By the end of 2019, Bablu would have completed 20 years of service. “Bablu would have qualified for (voluntary) retirement this year-end after two decades in the job. But it would have been solely his call and no one else’s. He was so daring a soul that we could not see him hanging up his boots,” Shampa said.
Family members said Bablu — an avid volleyball player — had returned from Himachal Pradesh last Saturday after a training session and joined his unit in Jammu and Kashmir on Sunday.
Having lost his father when he was only 13, Bablu took upon himself to support the family of four sisters and a brother.
Residents of Chawk Kashi said Bablu would sell fish to fund his education when he was in Class XII.
After bagging the CRPF job, Bablu helped his sisters get married and built a house for the family.
In 2009, he married Mita.
Banamali, Bablu’s 70-year-old mother, hasn’t stopped crying since the word about his death arrived. “I want justice for my son,” Banamali said.
Bablu loved old Hindi film songs. On Friday, his family said they were not sure if they could ever bring themselves to listen to the numbers Bablu loved to listen.