The last rites of nine defence personnel, including three IAF officers, who died in an air-crash in Arunachal Pradesh on Tuesday, were performed with full military honours near the Rowriah airbase on Saturday.
As guns boomed, grief-stricken relatives of the crash victims lit the pyre at Gormur ground near the airbase.
Seven IAF and six Army personnel were on board when the AN-32, a transport aircraft, crashed while on a routine sortie.
Wing Commander G S Butalia and squadron leaders P Siddharth and Manas Mishra were the IAF officers whose last rites were performed.
Butalia's younger brother and Siddharth's father were among the relatives present during the last rites.
The other IAF crew-members who died in the crash were Wing Commander P Shaji, Flight Lieutenant Varun Kumar, Master Warrant Officer Ramesh and Aircraftsman Sanjay Kumar, IAF sources said.
The bodies of the army men, who died in the crash -- Sunil Kumar, Kishore Kumar, Vijay Singh, Ringjing Wangchuk, B S Honhga -- were cremated while B Tirkey was laid to rest at the Eastern Theological burial ground at Rajabari near here.
Mortal remains of the rest four IAF personnel were handed over to their family members at Jorhat.
{{/usCountry}}Mortal remains of the rest four IAF personnel were handed over to their family members at Jorhat.
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