Bodies of 16 Army personnel, including three Junior Commissioned Officers(JCO), killed in a road accident in Sikkim on Friday, were airlifted to their native places in the country on Saturday.  Governor of Sikkim Ganga Prasad, Chief Minister Prem Singh Tamang and Army and Air Force officials paid their last respects to the jawans after a gun salute.

The deceased were identified as Naib Subedar Chandan Kumar Mishra and Naib Subedar Omkar Singh of 285 Medical regiment, Lance Havildar Gopinath Makur, Sepoy Sukha Ram, Havildar Charan Singh and Naik Ravinder Singh Thapa of 26 Mechanised Infantry, the Army said.

Mishra hailed from Khagaria in Bihar, while Omkar Singh was from Pathankot in Punjab, Makur from Bankura in West Bengal, Ram from Jodhpur in Rajasthan, Charan Singh from Lucknow in Uttar Pradesh and Thapa from Pantnagar in Uttarakhand.

From the 221 Field Regiment, Naik Vaisakh S and Naik Pramod Singh were among the deceased, while from the 25 Grenadiers, four soldiers who perished in the accident are Lance Naik Bhupendra Singh, Naik Shyam Singh Yadav, Naik Lokesh Kumar and Grenadier Vikas Kumar.

Vaisakh was from Palakkad in Kerala, Pramod Singh hailed from Ara in Bihar, Bhupendra Singh was from Eta, Yadav from Unnao, Lokesh Kumar from Muzaffarnagar, all three places in Uttar Pradesh, while Vikas Kumar was a resident of Fatehabad, Haryana.

Subedar Guman Singh and L/Havildar Arvind Singh from 8 Rajasthan Rifles, L/Naik Somvir Singh of 113 Engineer Regiment and L/Naik Manoj Kumar of 1871 Field Regiment were also among the soldiers who died in the accident, the Army said.

Guman Singh was a resident of Jaisalmer, Rajasthan, while Arvind Singh was from Bhiwani, Haryana, Somvir Singh hailed from Hissar Haryana and Manoj Kumar from Jhunjhunu in Rajasthan.

Wreaths were laid at a solemn ceremony held in Sikkim on Saturday for the 16 Army personnel.  They died when the Army truck they were travelling in skidded down a steep slope at Zema in North Sikkim on Friday morning.

The ill-fated Army truck was part of a three-vehicle convoy that was travelling from Chatten to Thangu.  A rescue operation was immediately launched and four injured soldiers were air evacuated to Siliguri and now undergoing treatment at a military hospital.

The bodies of the deceased were airlifted from Libing helipad in East Sikkim to Bagdogra airport near Siliguri city in northern West Bengal. The bodies were then sent to the jawans' homes in different parts of the country, he said.

The mortal remains were earlier brought to Sochethang near Gangtok in army vehicles and post-mortem examination was conducted.  Senior civil and police officials were present at the hospital to pay their last respects to the departed souls.