Rewari (Haryana): Sudesh Yadav’s voice cracks as she talks about her son.
“Why is Vikash forced to visit his own home in secrecy?”
“What danger is looming over him?”
These are some questions to which she is looking for answers.
One can view Vikash Yadav’s life in many ways – a former Research & Analysis Wing agent who has been named by the United States Department of Justice as a co-conspirator in a plot to murder pro-Khalistan separatist, Gurpatwant Singh Pannun; an officer who has been dismissed from his job by the Indian government, which has washed its hands of him; one who has been unemployed for almost a year; a person who has been briefly incarcerated in Tihar Jail on a minor ransom charge; a young man who made his village proud because he ‘worked for the country’; and finally, a son whom his aged and unwell mother awaits.
A few days ago, The Wire Hindi had reported that after he was named in a US indictment on October 17 and speculation began doing rounds about Yadav’s whereabouts, he had called his home in Pranpura village of Rewari district in Haryana and assured his family that he was safe and secure.
Now, it has come to light that the man on the US Federal Bureau of Investigation’s ‘wanted’ list had visited his village home and stayed there for several hours just this week. Yadav’s family and neighbours confirmed to The Wire Hindi that Vikash Yadav came home this week, spent a significant amount of time with his family, reassured them of his wellbeing and left. It has also surfaced that his wife Ekta reached Pranpura at the same time as Yadav, though it is unlikely that the two arrived together.
The Pranpura village where Vikash Yadav’s family lives. Photo: Shruti Sharma/The Wire Hindi.
The family is not aware of Yadav’s current location and are quite upset at the recent turn of events. They are neither able to understand the US indictment nor the first information report registered in Delhi after which Yadav was imprisoned in Tihar Jail for four months.
Vikash’s mother Sudesh urged The Wire Hindi to convey her message to the government. She said, ‘I appeal to the government that my son should return home safely. Whatever he did, he did for the country.’
An anxious silence envelops Pranpura. People in his neighbourhood find it hard to believe that Vikash Yadav, whom they considered a shy young man, was a RAW officer and his name has appeared in the US indictment in a conspiracy to kill Pannun.
Case filed for a permanent job kept under wraps
The family is unable to come to terms with many of the facts being reported about Vikash Yadav. One of these is the report that Yadav had been fighting a legal battle for many years to make his job with the RAW permanent. He worked as a RAW agent for nine years but got a permanent appointment on October 9, 2023 after approaching the Central Administrative Tribunal (CAT).
This also means that Yadav, a RAW agent who was allegedly plotting a murder in the US, was simultaneously fighting a legal battle against the same agency that could have allegedly handed him the task.
His family is surprised to hear this. “Was he fighting a case for so many years? He never told us anything,” a member said.
While it is understandable for an intelligence officer to hide his mission from his family, his family is surprised that Yadav hid the CAT case from them, and astounded that he was jailed for several months earlier this year. The reason for their disbelief in the latter is that Vikash phoned them regularly during this period.
Men in Pranpura. Photo: Shruti Sharma/The Wire Hindi
A bigger truth?
Neighbours and family members mistrust media reports and are loathe to trust the Union government, which they believe has done nothing to save Yadav.
Some claimed that Yadav’s financial condition worsened after the government dismissed him – something they claim happened last year.
“There is a lot of arrogance in this government,” says a villager, adding that it would do anything to “save its own face.”
An elderly couple in the neighbourhood have only good things to say about Yadav. “He brought glory to the entire village. He killed a militant,” says 70-year-old, Sheela Yadav. She then quickly corrects herself and adds, “He did not kill him, he [Pannun] survived. But he made everyone proud… Can you do anything like this?”
Her husband Lalchand Yadav, sitting on a cot next to her, says that he was in the Indian Army, and was posted in Colombo in the 1980s.
Sheela Yadav and husband. Photo: Shruti Sharma/The Wire Hindi
Yadav’s family has two cows – a Jersey and an indigenous breed. Yadav’s mother Sudesh milks them often for Yadav’s one-and-a-half-year-old daughter, Tarini. “Cow’s milk is good for children,” she says.
Tarini lives with Sudesh, her grandmother. Neither the family nor anyone else in the village knows about Ekta, Tarini’s mother and Yadav’s wife. All they know is that she hails from Rajasthan and the couple was married in Jaipur about a decade ago.
Pranpura is a Yadav-majority village. Ahirs have land and cattle, while communities belonging to the Scheduled Castes have neither cultivable land nor cattle. However, Swiggy and Zomato have made their way to this small village. Sandeep Kumar belongs to the Dalit community and lives a little away from Vikash Yadav’s house with his wife and one-and-a-half-year-old child. Since he does not have the support of farming, he delivers items to many villages in Rewari district through Swiggy and Zomato.
The people of Pranpura order not only food items but also ration items from Swiggy. How this trend is going to affect the rural economy, which includes street vendors as well as rural culture, is yet to be studied.
Another Dalit resident of this village, Chaitram says he was a close friend of Yadav’s father, the late Ram Singh Yadav. After Ram Singh’s death, Chaitram’s interactions with the Yadav family reduced, but he had visited their house to inquire about their well-being after the recent news. A few days ago, he even met Yadav when he visited home, he says.
This somber village is rife with the sentiment that justice must be done to its son. Upon hearing the news from the US, Yadav’s mother’s health had deteriorated, which led Yadav to visit her.
Sudesh, dressed in a green salwar kameez, still looks distraught. As she begins to speak, she takes pauses once and finally says, “After all, what does a mother want? Only that her children are doing fine. Can you take my voice to the people above?”
Translated from the Hindi original – published first on The Wire Hindi – by Naushin Rehman.