Indian defence chief cremated in televised military funeral

NEW DELHI: The flag-wrapped coffin of India's defence chief was towed through the streets of New Delhi on a gun carriage draped with flower garlands before he was cremated Friday.

General Bipin Rawat, 63, was killed along with his wife and 11 military personnel when their helicopter crashed on Wednesday.

He and his wife were cremated together on the same pyre, with a 17-gun salute fired as their daughters set it alight.

Rawat was India's first chief of defence staff, a position created for him, and an outspoken, polarising and popular officer, seen as close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

India accorded him full military honours for his funeral, with the gun carriage bearing his remains towed by an armoured vehicle and escorted by lines of security personnel.

Thirteen out of 14 people, including Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat, were killed when an Indian Air Force (IAF) helicopter crashed in Tamil Nadu's Coonoor Wednesday.

The crash

The 63-year-old was travelling with his wife and other senior officers in the Russian-made Mi-17 chopper, which crashed near its destination in southern Tamil Nadu state.

Footage from the scene showed a crowd of people trying to extinguish the fiery wreck with water buckets while a group of soldiers carried one of the passengers away on an improvised stretcher.

Rawat was headed to the Defence Services Staff College (DSSC) to address students and faculty from the nearby Sulur air force base in Coimbatore.

The chopper was already making its descent at the time of the crash.

It came down around 10 kilometres (six miles) from the nearest main road, forcing emergency workers to trek to the accident site, a fire official told AFP.