Gen Bipin Rawat Demise: Last Speech Of India's Top Military Officer Before Onboarding The Ill-Fated IAF Chopper

Before onboarding the ill-fated IAF chopper today, Gen Rawat addressed an event on Tuesday organised ahead of a BIMSTEC disaster relief exercise.

Chief of Defence Staff General Bipin Rawat. (File Photo/ Getty)

New Delhi: In a tragic incident that shook the nation on Wednesday, Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika Rawat, and 11 others died in a military chopper crash near Coonoor in Tamil Nadu. According to reports, Gen Rawat was on a visit to the Defence Services Staff College at Wellington in Nilgiri Hills to address the faculty and student officers of the staff course.

En route Nilgiri Hills, an Indian Air Force (IAF) Mi17V5 helicopter with a crew of four members carrying the CDS and nine others met with the tragic accident near Coonoor.

Out of the 14 people in the chopper, Group Captain Varun Singh, Directing Staff at the Defence Services Staff College, is the lone survivor and is currently undergoing treatment at the Military Hospital in Wellington.

Before onboarding the ill-fated chopper today, Gen Rawat addressed an event on Tuesday organised ahead of a BIMSTEC disaster relief exercise. While speaking at the curtain raiser event, Gen Rawat suggested setting up an information sharing mechanism among the BIMSTEC nations for better defence cooperation among their security agencies.

Snippets From General Bipin Rawat's Last Public Appearance:

• While speaking at the event, Rawat pitched for a united approach by the member nations of the grouping in preparing for likely future challenges such as Covid-19 pandemic and also stressed on the need to join hands to combat biological warfare. 

• Referring to the new Coronavirus variant - Omicron, Gen Rawat wondered whether it will again mutate into something else and said the countries should act together to overcome pandemics.

• "Is this also becoming the new kind of warfare and if this is the future warfare and that if biological warfare is somehow beginning to take shape, then once again I think the BIMSTEC nations need to act together and strengthen our efforts to make sure that our nations do not get affected by such kind of disease and virus," he had said.

• Further in his speech, Gen Rawat also pointed out the need to draw common legal frameworks and set up information sharing mechanisms to facilitate defence cooperation between security and judicial agencies of the member nations.

About General Bipin Rawat

The 63-year-old Army veteran General Rawat was appointed as the 27th Chief of the Army Staff in December 2017 by the Modi government. He took charge on December 31, 2016, after the retirement of General Dalbir Singh Suhag.

Later he took charge as India's first Chief of Defence Staff on January 1, 2020. The position was created to integrate the three services - Army, Navy and Air Force. 

The CDS is mandated to facilitate integration, ensure best economical use of resources allocated to the armed forces and bring uniformity in the procurement procedure.

General Rawat was also appointed as the head of the newly-created Department of Military Affairs.

(With inputs from agencies)