Thiruvananthapuram : , All roads leading to Walayar, Kerala, Saturday morning, led to A.Pradip, a Junior Warrant Officer at Trissur.He was on an IAF Mi-17 helicopter, which crashed in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday, killing 13 people, including India’s first Chief Of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat.Madhulika Rawat was also killed along with the other 14 aboard.
On Saturday morning, Pradip’s last journey from Sulur, where he worked, began with numerous vehicles accompanying the vehicle carrying the body of the departed soldier.
Union Minister of State for External Affairs V.Muraleedharan and Trissur Lok Sabha member T.N.Prathapan accompanied the body and at the Kerala border, three Kerala Cabinet Ministers — K.Radhakrishnan, K.Rajan and K.Krishnankutty, received the body.
There were thousands who waited along the roads from Palakkad towards Trissur, to say goodbye to Pradip.
Then the body was placed at the school at Puthoor in Trissur, for an hour where Pradip studied.His friends and the local residents came to that school, and bid him goodbye.
“He was a simple man with no air.never did he say that he used to move around with the high and mighty, as his job was such that and that was how he boarded the ill-fated flight with the CDS.He used to speak very little about his job, but was always at the front whenever he came for leave to be with his friends, family and the local populace,” said one of his grieving classmates, who was spotted at the school.
The body was then taken by 70 Air Force officers from the school and moved to Pradip’s home, 3km away.
Scenes were uncontrollable when the body reached his house, as his ailing father who is on breathing support was informed only a few hours before that his son has passed away.
“He took it bravely, while Pradip’s mother was uncontrollable, so was his wife.A team of doctors was present at the house as no one knew how he (his father) would react to the death of his son,” said a relative of Pradip.
His home was the venue for his final rites.He received full military honors.
He was also given a state funeral by the Kerala government.
The pyre was set up behind his house.
Pradip’s father was a casual labourer and after he joined the IAF in 2002, his father stopped working as Pradip did not want his father to toil hard.
Pradip spent two weeks in India with his dad, who was still hospitalized.
He left Sulur just four days after his father had been discharged from hospital.
His mother was a member of the local workforce in the National Rural Employment Guarantee programme.
In 2002, Pradip joined the IAF as a weapons-fitter and then became an Air Crew which enabled him to travel across the length and breadth of the country.
He volunteered to be a helicopter pilot when Kerala was hit by one of the most severe floods in its history.
The President of India praised him for his efforts in rescue work at different locations throughout the state.
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