The last time Mahendra Pratap Singh, 38, called home was on Saturday morning. “He used to call his two children at least thrice daily and had called last at 2 am on Saturday, just a few hours before the suicide attack. He said the project in Afghanistan would be over soon and he would be back in June,” says his brother Rajendra Singh, a lawyer.

At 1.30 pm the same day, Mahendra’s 14-year-old daughter Neha picked up another long-distance call. It was Deputy GM of Border Road Organisation (BRO) in Afghanistan, Ram Milan, half hour after the suicide attack that killed the BRO engineer.

Mahendra, the second among four sons of retired school teacher Hanuman Singh (78), did a technical course from Government Polytechnic at Lucknow and joined BRO in 1989. A few months ago, he was promoted to the post of engineer and went to Afghanistan in October 2007. Mahendra is survived by wife Uma and children Neha and Nikhil, 12.

“After yesterday’s call from Afghanistan which informed us about the tragedy, no authentic information has reached us about where exactly is our brother’s body, which certainly is a disrespect to the family,” Rajendra Singh says. “On getting the news we tried our best to get in touch with BRO officials in Afghanistan as well as New Delhi, which was of no use,” says Rajendra.

Mahendra’s brother-in-law Pradip, a clerk in education department in Ghazipur district, added: “On Sunday morning we received a call from a BRO official in New Delhi G G Singh, who informed us that Mahendra’s body had been flown to New Delhi and the plane would touch down shortly. Just when we were preparing to inform our relatives in New Delhi, came a phone call from BRO’s Ram Milan in Afghanistan saying Mahendra’s body would not reach New Delhi before Monday evening.”

... contd.