| - Bodies of four flown to native places | ||
| OUR BUREAU | ||
June 14 : It was a sombre atmosphere at the Garmurh crematorium in Jorhat today as the bodies of eight defence personnel, among the 13 killed in an air crash in Arunachal Pradesh on Tuesday, were consigned to flames with full military honours. The bodies of the eight defence personnel — three from the air force and five from the army — were consigned to flames at the Garmurh crematorium in the presence of their family members. The aged father of armyman A.K. Tirki chanted mantras over mobile phone from his home in Jharkhand seeking peace for his son’s soul. One of those cremated, Rinzun Wankchunk of Arunachal Pradesh, was a Buddhist. The body of one armyman, a Christian, was buried at the nearby Mission compound graveyard. Bodies of four other personnel, whose family could not arrive here, were flown to their native places. The AN-32 transport aircraft, which was carrying the army personnel, crashed soon after it left Mechuka in Arunachal Pradesh, an advance landing base, killing all the 13 people on board. Army troops carried the bodies on foot to Tato village from where they were airlifted by two MI-17 choppers from Along and brought to Jorhat airbase on Thursday evening. Defence public relations officer Wing Commander Ranjib Sahoo said in Shillong that the two black boxes were yet to be retrieved to ascertain the cause of the crash. “Our experts have reached the crash site and have moved to adjacent areas as well but the recovery of the black boxes is taking time since the parts of the aircraft are scattered over a large area,” he added. Sahoo said the initial indication was that the aircraft crashed because of adverse weather conditions, but this could be established only after the recovery of the black boxes. Engine failure is believed to be a possible reason for the crash. Apart from senior defence officials, including the in-charge of Jorhat Air Force base, G.P. Singh, Jorhat deputy commissioner L.S. Changsang and superintendent of police D. Choudhury were also present at the funeral service held at 11.30am. Official sources said the bodies of flight lieutenant V. Kumar and MWO Ramesh, two among the 13 accident casualties, were taken from Jorhat to Delhi’s Palam Airport by an IAF aircraft around 8.30am. They were received by senior IAF officials with full military honours and then taken to Jind and Nangloi, their respective native places, for the last rites. |
Arunachal crash victims cremated
Posted by
Sinlung
