Updated

Ambala/Bengaluru, Jan 4 (PTI): Heartrending scenes were witnessed today as martyrs of Pathankot terror attack were given a final farewell with full military honours in presence of hundreds of people who converged to pay their tributes to the bravehearts.

Slogans of 'Bharat Mata ki Jai' rent the air as the body of Garud commando Gursewak Singh, draped in the tricolour, reached his native Garnala village near Ambala, while the family members of the young Sikh, who was married in November, were inconsolable.

Haryana Ministers Anil Vij and Abhimanyu were present to pay tributes along with senior officers from the Air Force, besides personnel from the army, police and civil administration.

The body of Lt Colonel E K Niranjan, a bomb expert with the National Security Guard who was killed while defusing a grenade at the scene of the terror attack at Pathankot IAF base, was brought to Bengaluru from where it was to be taken to his hometown Palakkad in Kerala.

Teary-eyed people filed past the body as the martyr's family members sat near it. "He was always interested in the army. I am proud of his sacrifice," Niranjan's father Sivarajan said.

Niranjan's sister said, "I look at him as Arjuna who fought for his karmabhoomi."

He hailed from Palakkad in Kerala and is survived by his wife Dr Radhika and a 18-month-old daughter.

Fellow army officers and many prominent and eminent personalities paid tributes to the martyr at his residence. Thirty two-year-old Niranjan, whose family stays in Bangalore, was commissioned in the Engineers Regiment of the Army in 2004.

Niranjan, head of the elite bomb squad of the NSG, was killed while defusing an IED at Pathankot IAF base, yesterday. He was among seven security personnel killed in the terrorist attack there.

In Gurdaspur, Punjab, scores of mourners gathered at the house of Subedar Fateh Singh, 51, a shooter who had won Commonwealth medals. Singh's daughter Madhu joined the soldiers in carrying the body to the cremation ground.

"What my father has done today, I don't think anything can match it. I am proud of my father," Madhu said.

"We were at the air base when the attack took place," she said. Singh's wife, daughter and son had come to visit him.

Before leaving the quarters, Singh told his wife that he was going to get some documents signed after which they would go home.

"My father snatched the gun from that man and shot him," she said. Four terrorists have been neutralised in the operation at the Pathankot air base after the Saturday attack.

One Garud commando, one NSG officer and five personnel of Defence Security Corps (DSC) were martyred. Seventeen security personnel were also injured.

Earlier Report

Braveheart Col Niranjan martyred in Pathankot hailed from Bengaluru

Bengaluru, Jan 4 (DHNS) : National Security Guards commando Lt Col E K Niranjan, who was killed in an explosion during mopping up operations at the Pathankot Air Base on Sunday, was born and brought up in Bengaluru.

He is survived by wife, Dr Radhika, and 18-month-old daughter Vismaya. The 35-year-old Niranjan is the second NSG commando from Bengaluru to be martyred during anti-terror operations after Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, who died fighting terrorists in Mumbai in November 2008. Incidentally, the families of the two martyrs hail from Kerala and live in the neighbouring areas of Vidyaranyapura and Yelahanka in north Bengaluru.

As the news spread that a commando from Bengaluru had sacrificed his life during the terror operations, people started gathering at duplex house of Niranjan’s father Sivarajan, a retired BEL employee, at Subbanna Layout at Doddabommasandra in Vidyaranyapura. Niranjan, Sivarajan’s second son, lost his mother Rajeshwarai when he was just three-years old.

After his schooling at the BP Indian Public School in Malleswaram, he completed his PU from BEL PU College in Jalahalli.

After finishing his BE (Mechanical) from Sir MV Institute of Technology at Hunasamaranahalli on Kempegowda International Airport Road, Niranjan joined the National Defence Academy at Khadakwasla, Pune.

“My son was extremely passionate about joining the armed forces and getting clad in army uniform. He joined Short Service Commission in October 2003. Two year later, he was permanently commissioned. He had undergone training in the US and had served in Kashmir before his current posting in Delhi,” said Sivarajan.

While his sister Bhagyalakshmi is a teacher here, his younger brother, Shashank, works with TCS.

Hard working

Niranjan, according his friends and family members, was an avid sportsman who took part in basketball, cricket, football and kick boxing.

His teacher Major Shankar Jadhav remembered him as “a very good, hard working and determined boy”.

Harikrishnan, Niranjan’s paternal uncle who lives in Palakkad in Kerala, remembered him as a “focused officer”.

Niranjan’s family members said that his body would be brought to Bengaluru in the early hours of Monday by a special aircraft. It would be taken to his house and then kept at BEL School ground, opposite BEL hospital, to allow public to pay their homage. Around 3 pm, the body will be taken to Kerala.The last rites will be performed at Kalarikkal Tharavadu, Niranjan’s family home in Elambilassery in Palakkad district.