The Independence Day celebrations at Srinagar's CRPF 49 battalion this year was overshadowed by grief. Thirty-two-year-old Neha Tripathi, her little daughter by her side, was unfurling the flag. Last year, it was her husband, Commandant Pramod Kumar, who performed the same task. Within a couple of hours, he was dead. Today's ceremony was as much a tribute to the officer as to India on her 71st Independence Day.
