#FarewellGeneral : Family Members Say Final Goodbye To CDS Bipin Rawat And His Wife Madhulika Rawat

Picture : Twitter / ANI

The mortal remains of CDS General Bipin Rawat and his wife Madhulika Rawat have reached the Brar Square crematorium, Delhi Cantonment for his last rites . After Defence Minister Rajnath Singh paid his last respects, Kritika and Tarini, the daughters of CDS General Rawat and his wife Madhulika, sit by the coffins of their parents and would later on perform the last rites . Other members of the family also join them to say final goodbye.

Chants of ‘Vande Mataram’ and ‘General Rawat amar rahe’, greeted the sight of the coffin as the funeral procession of Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat and his wife Madhulika Rawat left his official residence for the last rites this afternoon. A total of 800 service personnel was in attendance for the military funeral of the CDS.

Military personnel drawn from all the three services marched towards the streets as drummers played along in tribute to India’s first Chief of Defence Staff.

As the mortal remains of General Rawat, carried in a casket wrapped in a tricolour, was moved to a gun carriage, decorated with flowers, people showered petals and raised slogans in his praise.

Military commanders of Sri Lanka, Bhutan, Nepal, and Bangladesh attended the last rites India’s first CDS Gen Bipin Rawat.

These include: General Shavendra Silva, Chief of Defence Staff and Commander of the Sri Lanka Army. Admiral Ravindra Chandrasiri Wijegunaratne (Retd), former Chief of Defence Staff of Sri Lanka, who is also Rawat’s course-mate at the National Defence College and a dear friend.

Brigadier Dorji Rinchen, Deputy Chief Operations Officer, Royal Bhutan Army, Lt Gen Bal Krishna Karki, Chief of General Staff, Nepali Army, Lt Gen Waker-UZ-Zaman, Principal Staff Officer, Armed Forces Division, Bangladesh.

Earlier, the mortal remains of CDS General Bipin Rawat and his wife Madhulika Rawat were kept at their official residence to allow people to pay their last respects.  BJP president JP Nadda, former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, former Defence Minister A K Antony, Congress leader Harish Rawat, CJI NV Ramana, Union Ministers – Amit Shah, S Jaishankar, Sarbananda Sonowal, Smriti Irani ,Nirmala Sitharaman, Mansukh Mandaviya, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, and Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU) leader Rakesh Tikat paid their last respects and laid wreaths . DMK leaders A Raja and Kanimozhi also paid their respects. Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, Uttarakhand Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami  too paid their respects .

General Rawat, 63, his wife Madhulika Rawat, and 11 other defence personnel were killed when a Mi17V5 helicopter carrying them crashed near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu.