The Hindu : Front Page : Hundreds pay homage to Maniappan

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, Nov 26, 2005

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Front Page

Hundreds pay homage to Maniappan

Staff Reporter

ALAPPUZHA: Ramankutty Maniappan, a Border Roads Organisation employee killed by the Taliban in Afghanistan, was cremated on the premises of his ancestral house at Chingoli in Alappuzha around 8 p.m. on Friday with full State honours.

The atmosphere was charged with patriotic fervour. The eldest son of Maniappan, Ajay, set fire to the pyre. Before that, the police band played funeral tunes and policemen gave a gun salute.

Maniappan's body arrived at his house by 6.50 p.m. The Ministers K.C. Venugopal, Thiruvanchoor Radhakrishnan, Adoor Prakash and Babu Divakaran, along with MLAs and political leaders, accompanied the coffin.

The body was placed first inside a makeshift tent for neighbours and friends to pay homage. Hundreds of people, including Sree Narayana Dharama Paripalana Yogam general secretary Vellappalli Natesan and leaders of political parties and social organisations, laid wreaths. After about an hour, the body was taken inside the house for the family members to pay respects. The cover of the coffin was removed for a while for them to see the body. Later, members of the Madras Regiment of the Indian Army, who brought the body home, took it out. Again, it was placed in front of the house for a while. BRO Additional Director-General T. P. Velayuthan and Brigadier K. R. K. Nair placed wreaths.Later, the soldiers carried the body to the pyre.

Earlier, Maniappan's body was placed at a specially erected shed at Nangiarkulamgara, near his wife's house, en route his house, at about 5.40 p.m. A large number of people had assembled there. After a brief while, the body was taken to Chooravila Lower Primary School where Maniappan had studied. The body was kept there for more than half an hour where hundreds of people paid homage.

Maniappan's house witnessed chaotic scenes when the body was placed there. Arrangements for controlling the large crowd were not adequate. Several women fainted in the rush. The police had to push back the crowd several times. The atmosphere was charged with patriotic shouts of `Jai Bharat.'

Our Thiruvananthapuram Staff Reporter writes:

Chief Minister Oommen Chandy on Friday afternoon received the body of Maniappan in the State capital.

The body was brought to Thiruvananthapuram on board an Indian Airlines flight from New Delhi around 3 p.m. The coffin was offloaded at the domestic terminal of the International Airport and transported in an ambulance to the technical area of the Southern Air Command. The Chief Minister escorted the body in his official car. The coffin was draped in the Tricolour and was accorded full State honours by a funeral squad drawn from the Kerala Special Armed Reserve Police force. A unit of the 11 Madras Regiment saluted the body as it was placed on a specially prepared dais at the Air Force station.

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