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President, Prime Minister offer tributes to chopper crash victims
President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli offered tributes to the seven victims of Wednesday’s helicopter crash, including Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Rabindra Adhikari.President Bidya Devi Bhandari and Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli offered tributes to the seven victims of Wednesday’s helicopter crash, including Minister for Culture, Tourism and Civil Aviation Rabindra Adhikari.
The bodies of the Air Dynasty helicopter crash victims were kept at Tundikhel ground on Friday for tributes. Vice-President Nanda Bahadur Pun; House Speaker Krishna Bahadur Mahara; ministers and senior government officials; and the general public paid their last respects to the deceased.
Adhikari’s body was airlifted to his hometown in Pokhara later in the afternoon. He was cremated at Ramghat with full state honours. Adhikari’s wife Bidhya and their sons, Biraj and Swaraj, performed the last rites as per the Hindu tradition by lighting the funeral pyre.
Before the cremation, a funeral procession was carried out through the streets of Pokhara Metropolis. Hundreds of people from the city and nearby villages joined the funeral procession to pay homage to Adhikari.
Adhikari was elected as the member of the House of Representatives from Kaski Constituency-2.
Deputy Prime Minister and Defence Minister Ishwar Pokhrel and Nepal Communist Party leaders including Bishnu Poudel, Narayan Kaji Shrestha and Bam Dev Gautam attended Adhikari’s funeral.
Around 600 security personnel were deployed to control the crowd who had come to say their final goodbyes to Adhikari.
The Air Dynasty helicopter had crashed at SisneBhir in Taplejung on Wednesday while returning to Kathmandu from Pathibhara, killing all seven people onboard.
Ang Tshiring Sherpa, managing director of Yeti Airlines; Birendra Prasad Shrestha, deputy director general of Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal (CAAN); Dhurba Bhochhibhoya, deputy director of CAAN; Yubaraj Dahal, a personal aide to Prime Minister KP Sharma Oli; and Arjun Kumar Ghimire, a Nepal Army official, were the other persons who died in the tragedy. sThe bodies were taken to the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, Maharajgunj, for post-mortem and identification, after they were airlifted from Taplejung on Thursday.