Even as the former President was cremated on Thursday, his most favourite AsDC Major Gopi Singh fell to terrorists bullets
NEW DELHI: A strange coincidence it is. Even as former President K R Narayanan was cremated on Thursday evening in New Delhi, at distant Bandipore in Jammu and Kashmir, his “most favourite” AsDC Major Gopi Singh fell to terrorists bullets.
Thirty-five-year-old Gopi was in tears when he came to know that Narayanan was no more. He spoke to his friend S N Sahu, director Prime Minister’s Office, who was formerly press secretary to Narayanan. Gopi expressed his desire to come to Delhi to attend his former boss’s funeral.
Gopi Singh was a rare phenomenon, a rare blend – an army officer , a poet and a man with an extraordinarily sensitive mind, said Sahu.
But fate had other plans. Gopi was not granted leave to attend the cremation, and instead, his Commanding Officer asked him to flush out terrorists holed up in a building at Bandipore. The building was locked from outside and Major Gopi Singh fired at the lock to open it. But in the ambush a militant fired at his face and the major died instantaneously.
Sahu, who worked with Narayanan for 13 years and knew Gopi Singh well during his stint in Rashtrapati Bhavan as AsDC, said Singh was “profoundly” mature for his age. He room was full of books – on literature, horticulture and military strategy.
The unmarried Gopi Singh was a brilliant army officer and was one of the most favourite AsDCs of both Narayanan and First Lady Usha Narayanan. He also served President A P J Abdul Kalam for four months.
“Apart from being an excellent army officer, he had a passion for literature and literary work, read extensively, wrote poetry and had a fine and sensitive approach to life. His first collection of poems had been published in 2002 and President Kalam had received the first copy of the publication in the Rashtrapati Bhavan,” Sahu told DNA.
Apart from his duty as AsDC, he also looked after the Moghul Gardens and had indepth knowledge about plants and flowers in the gardens. “Once when President Narayanan heard him explaining to a foreign dignitary about the history of a plant and giving botanical details about it, he expressed his happiness and commented “Gopi you should have been a horticulturist.”
Sahu said when he came to Delhi a few months back he revealed that he was reading Quran and trying to understand the great Islamic religion.
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