Lahore — Pakistan’s Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Baber Sidhu expressed grief over the tragic death of Indian Defence Chief Bipin Rawat on Wednesday.
Pakistan Air Force tweeted, “Air Chief Marshal Zaheer Ahmed Baber Sidhu, NI(M) Chief of the Air Staff Pakistan Air Force; has expressed his condolences on the tragic death of Indian CDS Gen Bipin Rawat, his spouse, and 11 other passengers/crew members in the helicopter crash today”.
A helicopter carrying India’s defense chief General crashed in the southern state of Tamil Nadu on Wednesday.
The 63-year-old chief of defense staff was traveling in a Russian-made Mi-17V5 chopper that met with an accident near Coonoor, Tamil Nadu.
Rawat is India’s first chief of defense staff, a position that the Indian government established in 2019. He was very close to Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
He and his wife were on board along with other officers and they were heading towards the Defense Services Staff College.
Rawat is credited with reducing insurgency on India’s northeastern frontier and he supervised a cross-border counter-insurgency operation into neighboring Myanmar.
