Prime Minister Narendra Modi strolled around the 40 coffins draped with tricolor on Friday evening as he paid his last respects to the CRPF personnel killed in the terror attack that transpired in Pulwama.
The mortal remains of the slain personnel reached the Palam air force in Delhi in a special Indian Air Force plane in the evening.
Home Minister Rajnath Singh received the bodies who had paid a visit to Kashmir earlier in the day.
Decorated with white floral arrangements, 40 coffins wrapped in tricolour were deftly arranged in the hangar, where senior officials of the CRPF laid wreaths one by one in a solemn ceremony, officials said.
National Security Adviser Ajit Doval, Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Delhi Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal, the chiefs of the three services — Army, Air Force and Navy — and senior cabinet ministers, including Defence Minister Nirmala Sitharaman, also paid their homage to the slain CRPF personnel.
Gandhi, who was standing alongside Army Chief General Bipin Rawat, politely asked the general to give way to him for paying his respects, said officials.
Forty CRPF personnel were killed and five injured in one of the deadliest terror attacks in Jammu and Kashmir on Thursday, when a Jaish-e-Mohammed suicide bomber rammed a vehicle carrying over 80 kg of explosives into their bus in Pulwama district.
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