A pall of gloom descended on Samana as the mortal remains of 27-year-old Flight Lieutenant Mohit Garg, who lost his life in the AN-32 crash in Arunachal Pradesh on June 3, reached his home on Friday.
A large number of people had turned up to bid a tearful adieu to Flight Lieutenant Mohit Garg.
Heart-rending scenes were witnessed after the mortal remains of Garg, draped in the tricolour, reached his home at Aggarsen colony here. His family members were inconsolable.
The mortal remains of Mohit were consigned to flames with full state honours at a cremation ground in Samana.
The Indian Air Force on Thursday completed the task of retrieving bodies of all its 13 personnel from the crash site of its AN-32 aircraft in the Pari mountains in Siang district of Arunachal Pradesh and flew them to Jorhat airport in Assam.
Punjab Cabinet minister Vijay Inder Singla was present to pay tributes along with senior IAF officers, besides personnel from the police and civil administration.
Slogans such as ‘Mohit Amar Rahe’, ‘Jab Tak Suraj Chand Rahega, Mohit Tera Naam Rahega’ and ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jai’ were shouted when the mortal remains were being taken to the cremation ground.
A number of relatives and family members of Garg were crying inconsolably as the mortal remains in the coffin were kept for mourners to pay their last respects.
The funeral pyre was lit by Mohit’s younger brother Ashwani Garg.
Mohit Garg (27) got married a year ago and his wife Astha was posted in a bank in Assam.
All 13 personnel aboard the Russian-made AN-32 had perished in the crash on June 3 about 30 minutes after the aircraft took off from Jorhat in Assam for Menchuka in Arunachal Pradesh.
The plane had simply gone missing and remained traceless till June 11, when its wreckage was located in the Pari mountains.
The Indian Air Force had been making efforts to retrieve the bodies from the crash site since then but the inclement weather and difficult terrain had been making the recovery difficult. With inputs from Agencies