Wife of soldier killed in Pakistan firing delivers baby hours before husband’s funeral

Lance Naik Ranjeet Singh was among the three personnel of Jammu and Kashmir Light Infantry who fell to the bullets of Pakistani intruders along the Line of Control (LoC) in Sunderbani sector of Rajouri district on Sunday.

Lance Naik Ranjeet Singh was to come home to his village in Jammu and Kashmir’s Ramban on Monday on two-month leave to attend to his pregnant wife and hold his child in his arms. However, it was his body that returned and his wife delivered a baby girl, hours before his last rites were held with full military honours.

Shimpu Devi, wife of slain soldier Ranjeet Singh, looks at her newly born daughter at Ramban district hospital on October 23. (HT Photo)

Singh was among three soldiers, all from Jammu and Kashmir, killed by Pakistan’s notorious border action team (BAT) Sunderbani area of Rajouri district on Sunday.

After his wife Shimpu Devi developed labour pains around midnight on Monday, she was admitted to Ramban hospital where she delivered the baby at 4.15 am on Tuesday.

“The daughter I have given birth today is the nation’s daughter and I wish she becomes an army officer,” she said at the hospital. She also said that she wants her daughter to be looked after by the army so that she gets all the facilities before joining it as an officer.

In a state of shock, Shimpu Devi then went to the cremation ground at Seri Ghat on the bank of Chenab in the afternoon to bid a tearful adieu to her husband. They got married in 2006.

Shimpu Devi looks at the casket of her husband Lance Naik Ranjeet Singh in Ramban on October 23.

Officers from army, police and civil administration besides local residents attended the last rites of the slain soldier.

The last rites of the other two soldiers - havildar Kaushal Kumar of Nowshera and rifleman Rajat Kumar Basan of Pallanwala in Akhnoor - were performed with full military honours at their native villages on Monday.