Ajit Pawar Cremated With Full State Honours; Amit Shah, Nabin Attend Funeral

The last rites of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, killed in a plane crash, were held with full state honours on Thursday at Baramati in Pune district.

Union ministers Amit Shah, Nitin Gadkari, former Union minister Sharad Pawar and BJP president Nitin Nabin attended the 66-year-old Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) chief’s funeral at the Vidya Pratishthan ground at Baramati, around 100 km from Pune.

Maharashtra CM Devendra Fadnavis and Deputy CM Eknath Shinde were also present, along with Ajit Pawar's wife Sunetra, who is a Rajya Sabha member, and sons Parth and Jay. Ajit Pawar's cousin Supriya Sule, Lok Sabha member from Baramati, and NCP working president and former Union minister Praful Patel were also present.

Thousands of people gathered for Ajit Pawar's last rites chanted "Ajit Dada amar rahe", when his mortal remains, draped in the national flag, were brought from his village Katewadi to the Vidya Pratishthan ground.

Shah, Gadkari, Nabin, Fadnavis, Union minister Ramdas Athawale, Goa CM Pramod Sawant, Eknath Shinde, former Union minister Sushilkumar Shinde and Andhra Pradesh minister Nara Lokesh were among the leaders who placed floral wreaths on Pawar's mortal remains.

On Thursday morning, the mortal remains of Ajit Pawar were taken from the Punyashlok Ahilyadevi Hospital in Baramati, where they were kept overnight, to his village.

Pawar and four other persons on board the aircraft were killed after it crashed barely 200 metres from the edge of the tabletop airstrip.

The others killed in the tragedy were Captain Sumit Kapoor, who had a flying experience of 15,000 hours, co-pilot Capt. Shambhavi Pathak with 1,500 hours of flying, Personal Security Officer (PSO) Vidip Jadhav and flight attendant Pinky Mali.

Their mortal remains were handed over to their families, hospital sources said.

Police have registered an accidental death report (ADR) case in connection with the plane crash, an official said.

The government Wednesday released a statement detailing the sequence of events that led to the crash and Ajit Pawar's death.

The aircraft was cleared for landing after a go-around due to poor visibility, but having finally received a clearance, it did not give any read-back to the ATC, and moments later burst into flames near the edge of the airstrip.

The Civil Aviation Ministry on Thursday said the "black box" (comprising the Flight Data Recorder and Cockpit Voice Recorde) of the Learjet aircraft has been recovered.