NEW DELHI – India’s first Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawad was cremated in the capital city on Friday with full military honours, two days after he, his wife and 11 others died in Tamil Nadu helicopter crash.
Gen Bipini, his wife and other officials were flying to Defence Services Staff College, Wellington (Nilgiri Hills) to attend a ceremony when the helicopter met the deadly accident.
Only one person, identified as Gp Capt Varun Singh SC, miraculously survived the accident. The Indian air force has launched an investigation into the incident.
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A huger numbers of soldiers escorted the carriage bearing the body of the country’s top general on its final journey through New Delhi.
The bodies of Rawat, his wife and 11 other officials were brought to New Delhi late on Thursday, where Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi laid wreathes before the flag-draped coffins.
Bipin Rawat is the first Chief of Defence Staff of India – a position that the Modi-led government established in 2019 – which he assumed last year after retiring as a top military commander.
Rawat, 63, who is said to be a close aide of Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi, has forty years of service as he commanded forces in occupied Kashmir and along the Line of Actual Control bordering China.
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