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Hours before he was killed in an encounter with militants in Jammu and Kashmir’s Doda Monday, Sepoy Ajay Singh Naruka, 24, had called his family in Rajasthan’s Jhunjhunu district, saying he would be home around July 20.

Sepoy Bijendra, 25, who was from the same district and was also killed in the gunfight, had wished he were home on Monday to celebrate the birthday of his wife, Ankita.

Both Sepoys of Rashtriya Rifles, enrolled in September 2018, sustained “gunshot wounds” during the encounter at about 8 pm Monday and succumbed to their injuries, along with two other personnel, including a Captain.
 

“Ajay had called home just yesterday saying that he is fine although a conflict is going on. He said, ‘Jhagda ho he raha hai, aapko pata hai aap log TV dekhte ho (the fight is on, you know as you watch TV)’ but I am coming home as my leave has been sanctioned,” Ajay’s uncle Om Prakash, Assistant Sub-Inspector with Rajasthan Police, told The Indian Express. “But this morning his father received a call from the Army informing him that he is no more.”

Ajay had last visited home about three months ago and is survived by his wife Shalu Kanwar and his parents, Kamal Singh and Salochana Devi. Ajay and Shalu married two years ago and do not have kids. Ajay’s younger brother Karan Veer is pursuing his MBBS from AIIMS, Bathinda.

Like most families in the region, the Narukas have sent several people to the Armed Forces and Ajay is not the first to lay down his life in the line of duty. “His uncle Sujan Singh, posted with the BSF, was killed December 14, 2021,” Om Prakash said. Sujan was killed in a Maoist attack during a BSF operation in Lakshmipur, Odisha. Ajay’s father Kamal Singh too retired from the Army in 2014-15 while another uncle, Kayam Singh Naruka, was awarded the Sena Medal in 2021.

While Ajay’s native village is Bhaisawata Kalan in Buhana tehsil, Bijendra was a native of Dumoli Kalan, which too falls under Jhunjhunu’s Buhana tehsil.
And like Ajay’s, Bijendra’s family too has been sending members to the Armed Forces. Bijendra’s brother Dashrath Singh is in the Army and posted in Lucknow.
 

Dasrath, 29, said he got a call about Bijendra from the Army sometime after 11 pm Monday and he left for Rajasthan soon after. “We used to talk daily. He had been trying for a leave and we were also planning that he would come to Lucknow first for sightseeing and then we could go to Jhunjhunu together. But now the thing I feared happened,” he said.

Some of Bijendra’s family are yet to be told that he is no more. “I reached Jhunjhunu early morning and told his wife Ankita he was in ICU. She keeps insisting why I can’t make her talk to him but I tell her he is in ICU so I can’t. My mother too keeps fainting upon hearing his name, so we haven’t told them he is no more,” Dasrath said.

Sitaram, a relative, said they are stopping anyone from going towards Bijendra’s house – until two hours before the arrival of the body — since a crowd might disclose what they’ve been hiding.
Apart from wife Ankita, Bijendra is survived by two sons Viyan (4 years) and Kiyan (18 months), and parents Ram Ji Lal and Dholi Devi.