Delhiwale: Lest we forget

Rupen Katyal, a martyr of the IC 814 hijacking, is honored in Gurugram. Many roads in Delhi-NCR commemorate heroes, blending history with local identity.

He is commemorated in the Millennium City of Gurugram as a shaheed, a martyr. In 1999, honeymooner Rupen Katyal, along with his wife, boarded a Delhi-bound flight from Kathmandu. He was the only passenger among 155 who was killed by the hijackers of IC 814, which is also the name of a talk-of-the-town web series that purports to recreate the entire incident.

In 1999, honeymooner Rupen Katyal boarded with wife a Delhi-bound flight in Kathmandu. He was the only one among the 155 passengers killed by the hijackers in IC 814, which is also the name of a talk-of-the-town web series. (HT Photo)

One afternoon, Shaheed Rupin Katyal Marg was full of raised dust. A portion of the roadside was taken over by a snack stall with a broken chair, a citizen lay sprawled nearby.

Delhi-NCR has many roads named after the nation’s shaheeds—such as Shaheed Major Vikas Yadav Marg, Shaheed Sukhbeer Singh Yadav Marg, Shaheed Jeet Singh Marg, Shaheed Captain Sameer Bhan Marg, Shaheed Captain Anuj Nayyar Marg, and Shaheed Harikishan Marg. Though Gurugram’s Lt Atul Kataria Marg has no ‘shaheed’ prefixed to it, the lieutenant colonel too was a martyr. He made the supreme sacrifice in Jammu and Kashmir in 1998. Ditto the case with Noida’s Captain Shashikant Marg. The captain made the supreme sacrifice the same year in the same state (which is now a Union territory).

These reverent road-names apart, sample these roads in the Capital region named after figures who might not be very familiar to some of us. Such as Dr Bishambar Das Marg—it is named after a Punjab-born doctor who popularised homoeopathy in the country. Balwant Rai Mehta Lane is named after Gujarat’s second chief minister. Rafi Marg is sometimes misunderstood to be named after the iconic singer Muhammed Rafi. The Rafi here is actually Rafi Ahmed Kidwai, a minister in Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru’s cabinet. Sham Nath Marg is named after a deputy minister for the railways.

Lest we forget, there is also Captain Haneef Uddin Marg in Mayur Vihar. The young army officer was martyred during the Kargil War. When the army chief visited the braveheart’s mother at her Mayur Vihar apartment, informing that the body could not be retrieved because of constant firing by the enemy, she stated that she did not wish that another soldier risk his life for her son’s remains. The body was eventually recovered after more than a month. Today, the shaheed lies buried in a Delhi graveyard.

PS: The detail on Captain Haneef Uddin sourced from Rachna Bisht Rawat’s book Kargil-Untold Stories from the War