Assam bids farewell to Capt Jintu Gogoi

GUWAHATI, JULY 16: She should have been wearing the traditional Assamese silk riha-mekhela and chador, preferably in exciting red or pink...

GUWAHATI, JULY 16: She should have been wearing the traditional Assamese silk riha-mekhela and chador, preferably in exciting red or pink, like the traditional Assamese bride. But Anjuna had to instead settle for a stark white churidar and kameez.

Her fiance, Captain Jintu Gogoi, laid down his life in Kargil just one month after the ring ceremony on June 2. “This is not the time to talk,” said Anjuna, after she arrived at the Lokapriya Gopinath Bordoloi Airport here at 11.30 am today, escorting the body. She was accompanied by her mother and brother.

Assam Governor S K Sinha, Chief Minister Prafulla Kumar Mahanta, senior Army officers, ministers, MLAs and political leaders received the body of the soldier and laid wreaths on it. They then flew off to Jorhat in Upper Assam in a special IAF aircraft, heading for Khumtai in Golaghat for performing the last rites.

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Anjuna and Jintu were childhood friends, being children of Air Force officers at Ambala and other stations. They fell in love while studying at Kurukshetra University where Jintu won the title of “Mr University” in 1994.

The last time they met was on June 4, two days after the ring ceremony took place in Delhi, when Captain Gogoi got the call for the battlefield.

Back in Upper Assam, on the entire stretch of the road — from the Rawriya airfield, Jorhat, to Khumtai, exactly 53 km away, the people have spontaneously erected memorial arches for the martyr to receive his mortal remains.

Reports from Jorhat said thousands of people lined up on both sides of the road and paid their homage to Capt Gogoi while the crowd swelled to about 25,000 at his native village of Khumtai as the body reached there.

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Relating the incident in which Capt Gogoi made the supreme sacrifice, Subedar S S Gusain of the 17 Garhwal Rifles, who accompanied the body, said it was on the night of June 30 that a 30-member squad led by the Captain had headed for an enemy position in the Jubar hills in Batalik sector.

“The group took the entire night to scale the 15,000-feet slope. While the men, under Capt Gogoi’s leadership, launched an assault on an enemy bunker and captured it within hours, they were drawn into a fierce battle, in which he was shot,” Subedar Gusian said.

An injured Capt Gogoi, however, refused to give in and continued fighting. He ordered his men to move ahead but was left behind, injured and unable to move. He is believed to have died there while the body lay in the battlefield 11 days till it was recovered on July 13.

The dead captain was the only son of Hon Flying Officer Thogiram Gogoi, a veteran of all the three wars — 1962, 1965 and 1971. An athlete and a body builder, Capt Gogoi was also a good painter.