seven-year-old daughter Aarna, and his 63-year-old father.

Born in Patna’s Bakhtiyarpur village, Kumar was from Jamtara in Jharkhand where his family had shifted. The body was airlifted to his native place for the last rites.

WATCH: CRPF Commandant Pramod Kumar unfurled tricolour in Srinagar y'day, was shot dead by terrorists an hour later.https://t.co/HBjfPSaV88 — ANI (@ANI_news) August 16, 2016

Eight CRPF men were wounded in the Nowhatta shooting, while a Jammu and Kashmir police officer, who was shot in the head, is battling for life.

The attack on security forces in the old city is a first after more than a decade; the last major instance probably goes back to the 1990s when the bloodiest phase of militancy had engulfed Kashmir Valley.

Kashmir has been on the edge since security forces gunned downCRPF’s Deputy Inspector General in the city’s Karan Nagar area. (Photo courtesy: CRPF)

Kumar has just finished reading out a message from his boss when news of a militant attack barely 3km away in Nowhatta reached him. He dashed out with a small team in a bullet-proof vehicle.

“He was leading from the front when he was shot,” CRPF spokesperson Bhavesh Choudhary said.

The CRPF believe Kumar shot dead one of the two militants killed in the battle.

Kumar was appointed directly an officer in January 1998 and promoted to the rank of commandant on July 12 this year. He was serving in Srinagar since April 2014, and was awaiting a new posting after the promotion.

He served in the Special Protection Group, which guards the Prime Minister and a select group of