Amidst tears and fond recalls, Brigadier Ravi Datt Mehta and diplomat V Venkateswara Rao, among the four Indians killed on Monday in Kabul, were cremated in the Capital.
NEW DELHI: Amidst tears and fond recalls, Brigadier Ravi Datt Mehta and diplomat V Venkateswara Rao, among the four Indians killed on Monday in Kabul, were cremated in the Capital with full honours on Tuesday.
Brigadier Mehta was cremated with military honours at the Delhi War Cemetery in west Delhi near the cantonment. A few hours later, Rao was given a tearful farewell by his family, colleagues and senior government and political leaders in the same cemetery.
The bodies of the four Indians killed in the deadly bomb blasts at the Indian embassy were brought to the Capital early on Tuesday morning in an Indian Air Force transport plane. Mehta’s wife and children including his fighter pilot son who were in Kabul on vacation flew back with the body. Rao’s wife and children had flown to Kabul to bring back his body.
Besides Mehta, and political and information counsellor Rao, the two other Indians killed were ITBP personnel, Ajai Pathania and Roop Singh, who were on duty at the gates of the embassy. A total of 44 people were killed in the deadly blast.
Chief of Army Staff General Deepak Kapoor personally led the military leaders in bidding farewell to Mehta, whose mortal remains were draped in tri-colour.
In a tearful ceremony, the tri-colour and ceremonial accoutrements of the late Brigadier were handed over by Army to his bereaved wife Sunita Mehta. Mehta’s funeral pyre was lit by his son flight lieutenant Udit Mehta, a fighter pilot.
Later in the day, Rao, the second Indian career diplomat to be killed, was given a tearful farewell with full honours.
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