INDIAN defence chief General Bipin Rawat and 12 other people were killed in a helicopter crash on Wednesday (8), with one survivor being treated for his injuries.
Rawat was India's first chief of defence staff, a position that the government established in 2019, and was seen as close to prime minister Narendra Modi.
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.
"His untimely death is an irreparable loss to our Armed Forces and the country," defence minister Rajnath Singh said on Twitter.
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 said.
The sole survivor of the crash, a captain working at the DSSC, was being treated for his injuries at a nearby military hospital, the air force said.
Indian foreign minister Subrahmanyam Jaishankar said he was "deeply shocked" by the accident and Rawat's death.
"We worked closely together in the last few years. It is a huge loss to the nation," he said.
Inquiry underway
Rawat came from a military family with several generations having served in the Indian armed forces.
The general joined the army as a second lieutenant in 1978 and had four decades of service behind him, having commanded forces in Indian-administered Kashmir and along the Line of Actual Control bordering China.
He was credited with reducing insurgency on India's northeastern frontier and supervised a cross-border counter-insurgency operation into neighbouring Myanmar.
Rawat was chief of the 1.3 million-strong army from 2017 to 2019 before his elevation to defence services chief, which analysts said was to improve integration between the army, navy and air force.
He was considered close to the Modi government and turned heads last month when he reportedly made an approving reference to "lynching terrorists" in the contested territory of Kashmir.
The Mi-17 helicopter, which first entered service in the 1970s and is in wide use by defence services around the world, has been involved in a number of accidents over the years.
Fourteen people died in a crash last month when an Azerbaijani military Mi-17 chopper went down during a training flight.
In 2019, four Indonesian soldiers were killed and five others wounded in central Java in another training accident involving the aircraft.
India's air force said an inquiry was underway into Wednesday's accident.
(AFP)
Davindra and Seema Misra, and Vijay and Gita Parekh
Varchas Patel with his father Vipin and mother Jayshriben
Hasmukh Shingadia and his wife Chandrika were all victims of the Horizon scandal
During the hearing, Clifford denied all the charges except for the rape charge, which was added to the indictment at the session. (Photo: Hertfordshire Police /Handout via REUTERS)
Man pleads not guilty to murder of BBC presenter's family
A 26-year-old man has pleaded not guilty to charges of murdering the wife and two daughters of BBC sports commentator John Hunt in a crossbow and knife attack.
Kyle Clifford, who also faces charges of rape, appeared via video link at Cambridge Crown Court on Thursday.
Clifford, arrested in July after a manhunt, is charged with three counts of murder, one count each of rape and false imprisonment, and two counts of possessing offensive weapons – a 10-inch knife and a crossbow.
During the hearing, Clifford denied all the charges except for the rape charge, which was added to the indictment at the session.
He is expected to enter a plea for that charge at a later date.
The victims were Carol Hunt, 61, wife of horseracing commentator John Hunt, and their daughters Louise, 25, and Hannah, 28.
An earlier hearing revealed that Louise had been found tied up and that both she and her sister had been shot with a crossbow, while their mother had been stabbed with a knife.
The fatal attack occurred at the family’s home in Bushey, a commuter town near Watford, northwest of London.
(With inputs from AFP)