Shahanaz Parveen with her daughter at her home on Sunday. (Surajit Roy)

Malda, June 27: Mohammad Etaharul Islam had called up his wife on her cellphone moments after being fatally injured in a Maoist attack in the forests of West Midnapore and asked her to forgive him for not listening to her.

“I have been shot at by the Maoists. They are taking me to hospital, I will not survive, forgive me if you can,” the constable of the specially trained armed company (Straco) of the state police struggled to tell Shahanaz Parveen around 3.30am today, gasping all the while. He had married her in 2007. The last time he was home, Shahanaz had told Etaharul not to go to West Midnapore.

The news that Etaharul had succumbed to injuries was conveyed to the 27-year-old’s family in Chyampurchowki-Momintola, 40km from here, early this morning.

Shahanaz said the call from her husband had scared her. “I roused my father from his sleep. I was shocked at what I was hearing, but my husband repeated the same things to my father,” said the 20-year-old, holding tightly the couple’s two-and-a-half-year-old daughter.

An officer from Jhargram, who was present during today’s operation, said after Etaharul fell down injured, Straco personnel provided covering fire as two other constables rushed to bring him to safety. “When the policemen reached Etaharul, they found him speaking to his wife on his cellphone. Etaharul was bleeding profusely…He was taken to the Jhargram subdivisional hospital where he was put on blood transfusion and sent to Midnapore Medical College and Hospital in an ambulance,” the officer said. Etaharul died on the way.

It was not the first time that Etaharul had been posted in Maoist-infested areas. “When he told me stories about his earlier postings in rebel zones, I had pleaded with him not to go back. But he said he would have to carry out his duties,” Shahanaz said. Etaharul had left for West Midnapore on June 21 and was supposed to return home on leave early next month. “He had called up my mother-in-law on Saturday and told her that he would return on July 3.”

Rezia Bibi regretted that she could not talk enough with her son on Saturday. “Etaharul had called me around 9pm and it was raining very heavily here. I could not hear him properly and had asked him to call later,” she said.

Etaharul was the eldest of four brothers. While the two younger ones are still in school, the other one helps father Rabiul Momin with the family’s mango and cement business.