Thousands of people raised slogans hailing his sacrifice to the nation, as the mortal remains of 36-year-old Naik Kundalik Mane — who was among five soldiers killed along the line of Control (loC) on Tuesday — were on Thursday consigned to flames with full military honours at his native Pimpalgaon village of Kolhapur district in western Maharashtra.
Slogans like ‘Kundalik Mane amar rahe’ (May Kundalik Mane remain immortal), ‘Bharat Mata ki jai’ and ‘Gali gali mein shor hain, Pakistan chor hain’ rent the air, as slain soldier of Maratha light Infantry was accorded a State funeral, with several top civil and military officials in attendance.
A huge posse of Army and police personnel offered a gunfire salute to Mane, as his funeral pyre was lit in the presence of Maharashtra Home Minister RR Patil, Ministers Harshavardhan Patil, Hasan Mushrif and BJP’s deputy leader in lok Sabha Gopinath Munde.
Political leaders, including Patil and Munde, and senior military officials paid their respects to the slain soldier. Mane is survived by his wife Rajashri, son Amol, daughter Aarti, aged parents, two brothers and a married sister. All of them were present at his funeral. Mane — whose body had been flown from New Delhi to Pune by an Indian Air Force aircraft late Wednesday night — was taken by road in the early hours of Thursday to his native village of Pimpalgaon, where his body was kept for view for some time before it was cremated.
Mane, who was among the five Indian soldiers killed by Pakistani Army personnel killed in Poonch sector of Jammu and Kashmir, had joined the Indian Army in 1998. Trained in Belgaum, Mane was due for retirement next year. He had plans of starting a private transport company and settling down in his village, after his retirement.
Meanwhile, the Maharashtra Government has announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh to the next of kin of Mane.