Jammu: In 2003 when Ashok Kumar was going through the recruitment process for the CRPF, he got to know that he had the rarest blood group — AB negative.
Almost 17 years later, he received a distress call from his commandant, asking him to save a life by donating blood for a 69-year-old resident of Poonch, a town near the Indo-Pak border in Jammu and Kashmir.
The family of Nazir Hussain had sent an SOS message to the Kashmir-based CRPF ‘madadgaar’ helpline over social media, stating that they were in urgent need of ‘AB negative’ blood for the patient suffering from the chronic kidney problem. The CRPF helpline got into action and quickly went through its database to find if any of its Jammu-based units had a person with the rare blood group.
The search led to 39-year-old head constable and radio operator Ashok Kumar, who is the only personnel in the 72nd battalion of the paramilitary force based in Sunderbani, Jammu, to have the AB negative blood group.
“When my commandant asked me to volunteer, I felt happy and was ready to help,” Kumar told PTI over phone. Hussain’s grandson Adalat Khan, who along with family members were eagerly waiting for some help to arrive, said Kumar’s donating blood came as a blessing.
“I salute and shall be indebted to the 72 battalion of the CRPF forever and especially to brother Ashok Kumar who came as an angel and saved a life by donating his precious and invaluable blood timely in this hard time and proved that humanity never dies,” Khan wrote in his note of thanks to the force.
As AB negative is a very rare blood group, it was almost impossible to get it for donation, he said. Khan said no units of the blood group were available in the blood bank and no one in their family had it too. That was when we decided to seek the help of CRPF’s ‘madadgaar’, he said.
Kumar said he only got to know that he had such a rare blood group when it was told to him during his recruitment in the force in 2003. “I had then also donated blood to a colleague when I just entered the force. Why should one hesitate to help when the god has bestowed him with such a rare blessing?, the trooper from Bihar’s Arwal district said. “It is the motto of my force to help and serve the people and that was all I did,” Kumar said.
