
Kerala Saturday bid an emotional farewell to IAF Junior Warrant Officer A Pradeep, one of those killed in last Wednesday’s helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu’s Coonoor.
His seven-year-old son Dakshni Dev lit the pyre at their residence in Puthur village in Thrissur even as guns boomed as a mark of respect to the officer.

Earlier in the day, the body of the officer, which was brought from Delhi to the IAF station in Sulur near Coimbatore, was taken to Thrissur via road. At the state border, ministers K Rajan, K Krishnankutty and K Radhakrishnan received the body on behalf of the state government. Union minister of state V Muraleedharan and Thrissur MP T N Prathapan accompanied the body from Delhi.
Thousands of people, holding the national flag, thronged both sides of the road from the state border Valayar to Thrissur to pay homage to the officer. The body was laid for public homage at a school at Puthur, where Pradeep had studied.
Pradeep’s father A Radhakrishnan, a farm labourer, has been on life-support. It was only on Friday that the family informed the father about the death of his eldest son.
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