Amid the pall of gloom that descended on the remote village of Elambulassery, near Mannarkkad, in Palakkad, hundreds bade a tearful adieu to Lt. Col. E.K. Niranjan.

A long way from there, at Garnala, near Ambala, in Haryana, slogans of Bharat Mata ki Jai rent the air as the body of Garud commando Gursewak Singh, draped in the Tricolour, reached the village.

The family members of the young soldier, who was married in November, were inconsolable.

In Gurdaspur, Punjab, scores of mourners gathered at the house of Subedar Fateh Singh, 51, a shooter who had won Commonwealth medals. Singh’s daughter Madhu joined the soldiers in carrying the body for cremation.

Back in Elambulassery, the gloom was mixed with a spirit of pride and defiance as mourners converged near his ancestral house, where the mortal remains were laid to rest with full official and military honours on Tuesday noon.

Niranjan, a National Security Guards commando, made the supreme sacrifice while defusing a grenade from a terrorist’s body at the Indian Air Force base at Pathankot on Sunday.