No sportsperson to bid adieu to Kotecha

He was a world-class paraglider who died while representing India in a pre-world paragliding world championship in Bulgaria, but no dignitary from the sports field turned up to pay tribute to Dilip Kotecha in Pune on Saturday.

Kotecha (44) lost his life while taking part in the event at Sopot in Bulgaria. The glider had collapsed and went into a spiral dive when he was flying 120 metres above terrain on July 15.

His body was brought to Mumbai around 4 am on Saturday and arrived at his residence at Chashm-E-Shahi building in Koregaon Park in Pune around 1 pm. Kotecha’s family members, close relatives and members of Jain community had gathered at his house since morning. However, apart from a few members of paragliding community, people from sports fraternity were conspicuous by their absence to pay tribute to the top-notch paraglider of the country. Eric Menezes, a paragliding instructor and Kotecha’s flying partner who was present at the last rites told DNA, “Members of paragliding community from Pune, Mumbai, Panchgani and Kamshet had gathered at his residence. No other personality from sports community was present.”

According to Eric, though Kotecha was representing India in paragliding at the international level, he was never supported by the Indian government. He wanted the government to give recognition for the paragliding event and was constantly in touch with the authorities. He said that Kotecha had to arrange funds from his own pocket to participate in any paragliding event and he was not covered under any insurance policy in his last pre-world paragliding championship.

Kotech’s cousin Dr Shreyansh Kapale told DNA, “Every time before participating in such an event, he would go for insurance. However, for this event he had not got an insurance cover and unfortunately he was killed in a mishap.”

The last rites were preformed in Yerawada crematorium at 3 pm.