NEW DELHI: The mortal remains of the rest of the Army and IAF personnel killed in the Mi-17 V5 crash along with chief of defence staff General Bipin Rawat have been ‘positively identified’, officials said on Saturday.
Of the 14 officers and personnel on board the ill-fated helicopter, 13 were killed in the horrific crash near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday afternoon.
The bodies of Gen Rawat, his wife Madhulika and military advisor Brigadier L S Lidder, who had been approved for the next rank of Major General, were cremated with full military honours at the Brar Square crematorium in Delhi Cantonment on Friday. The body of Lance Naik Vivek Kumar was also identified earlier.
On Saturday morning, the bodies of the two pilots, Wing Commander Prithvi Singh Chauhan and Squadron Leader Kuldeep Singh, Junior Warrant Officers Rana Pratap Das and Arakkal Pradeep, and Lance Naiks B Sai Teja and Vivek Kumar were handed over to their families after positive identification, said an official.
The bodies of Lt Colonel Harjinder Singh, who was the staff officer to Gen Rawat, Havildar Satpal Rai and Naiks Gursewak Singh and Jitendra Kumar, in turn, were positively identified through DNA testing on Saturday evening. “Their bodies will be handed over to their family members on Sunday morning,” he added.
The sole survivor of the crash, Group Captain Varun Singh, is in a critical condition on life support at the IAF Command Hospital in Bengaluru. Defence minister Rajnath Singh on Saturday talked to Group Captain Singh’s father Colonel K P Singh.
A Shaurya Chakra awardee, Group Captain Singh was the liaison officer for Gen Rawat, who was scheduled to deliver a lecture at the prestigious Defence Services Staff College (DSSC) at Wellington on Wednesday.