General Bipin Rawat cremated with full military honours, daughters lit the funeral pyre

• Image Credit: Internet

• Dec 10, 2021 | moderator

New Delhi: The nation bid farewell to one its most decorated, valiant and a brilliant General, Bipin Rawat. Home Minister Amit Shah, Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, Uttarakhand CM and Delhi CM paid homage to the late Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and his wife Madhulika Rawat at Brar Square in Delhi. The Rawats, along with 11 others, were killed in a helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu's Coonoor on Wednesday. Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, NSA Ajit Doval, and the three service chiefs paid tributes to Brigadier LS Lidder before the cremation of his mortal remains in the morning.

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Gen Rawat and his wife, Madhulika Rawat, were cremated with full military honours at the Brar Square Crematorium, where, just a few hours earlier, the armed forces bid goodbye to his aide, Brigadier LS Lidder. Elaborate arrangements were made and 800 service personnel took part.

Politicians cutting across party lines also came to express their grief, including Congress MP Rahul Gandhi and the chief ministers of Uttarakhand (PS Dhami) and Delhi (Arvind Kejriwal). Gen Rawat hailed from the Pauri Garwhal district in Uttarakhand.

In attendance at the funeral were senior military commanders from Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, and Bangladesh. Messages of grief have poured in from many more countries, including the US, the UK, China, France, Japan and Israel.

The bodies of General Rawat and his wife, Madhulika Rawat, had been laid side by side on the same pyre. Daughters Tarini and Kritika lit the funeral pyre. The CDS was accorded a sombre 17-gun salute in line with protocol. About 800 service personnel took part in the cremation ceremony, as the entire nation bowed their heads in prayer for the departed souls.