Srinagar, Feb 14: A musician from Bengaluru Umesh Gopinath Jadhav has been travelling over the past four years, covering 130,000 kilometres, to collect soil from fallen soldiers who were killed in the line of duty. To date, he has visited 150 families across the nation.
The 42-year-old musician quit his lucrative profession in Bengaluru and made the decision to visit the families of the CRPF jawans who died in the Pulwama attack. On April 9, 2019, he left his wife, two sons, and home to embark on an different journey.
Jadhav told Rising Kashmir that he was returning to Bengaluru after performing at a music event in February 2019. Then he learned about the Pulwama assault, which changed his life forever.
“I assumed if the similar thing would have happened to any members of our family, I would also get some distress call from the CRPF. “On the same day, I decided to collect soil from all the martyrs’ homes,” he explained.
He says to collect the soil, he travelled over 61,000 kilometres across the country to meet the bereaved families of 40 CRPF Jawans.
“During the first anniversary of the Pulwama attack, I was the only guest invited at the Pulwama Martyrs Memorial, Lethpora. Then I handed over martyrs soil in an Urn (Kalash) to that time CRPF SDG Zulfiqar Hasan, IPS which is now an integral part of the memorial,” he said.
Over the past four years, Jadhav has travelled over 1.30 lakh kilometres across 28 states and 8 Union territories. On Tuesday he also paid rich tributes to slain jawans at BalidanStambh Jammu.
“During my journey, I also met family members of those who died in first and second World Wars, Kargil war, Uri attack, Pathankot attack, Operation Rakshak, Galwan clash and recent Coonoor helicopter crash in which Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat died,” he said.
Jadhav says that now the soil collected from the homes of the other martyrs will also be handed over to the Defence Forces to make another memorial in New Delhi.
About his journey, he said throughout the India including Jammu and Kashmir, people helped me in my mission. Some gave food and some provided fuel to vehicle that is filled with patriotic slogans.
“I went to slain Rifleman Aurangzeb’s home in Poonch, Captain Tushar Mahajan in Udhampur and Kriti Chakra Sushil Khajuria in Jammu. We are all safe because of sacrifices of our security forces,” he said.
Jadhav and his friends are now planning to make a documentary from his interactions with the martyrs’ families and give it to the Defence Ministry.
“Politicians and Political parties keep changing with their interests but security forces continue to safeguard lives of common people living in every part of our country,” he said.
In Feb 2019, 40 CRPF personnel were killed when a Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM) militant rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a CRPF bus which was part of a convoy travelling from Jammu to Srinagar.
