From the description of friends and family, Major Sandeep was a no-nonsense, determined and focused officer.

“He was a stickler for discipline. He would be upset if my appearance was even slightly dishevelled or if there was a stain on my trouser. I know he was brave,” Sandeep’s father, who moved to Bangalore from Kerala four decades ago, said as family and friends gathered at their residence in the sparsely populated ISRO colony on the outskirts of Bangalore.

Over the silence of gloom and quiet whispers in the house, Sandeep’s mother’s voice broke through intermittently from an adjoining bedroom asking: “Why did he have to go there? Why did my son have to go there?” Women from the family, including Sandeep’s elder sister Sandhya, tried to console her.

“We don’t want to talk about him. It is not something he would have liked. He was the kind of person who would want to go about his work quietly,” an old schoolmate from Bangalore said.

“There was a perfectionist in him. He was very determined,” a childhood and family friend, Sanish Damodaran, recalled.

Sandeep had joined the National Defence Academy after schooling in Bangalore till Class XII. He was divorced.

His family has said they don’t want a big funeral. “Let him be accorded whatever military honours are due. We do not want ceremony because he would not have liked it,” an uncle told a Bihar Regiment liaison officer.