Brigadier Lidder cremated with full military honours; ‘will go ahead with happy memories’, says daughter
The three service chiefs - Army Chief General MM Naravane, Navy Chief Admiral R Hari Kumar and IAF chief Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari too paid their last respects to Brig LS Lidder.
FollowBrigadier Lakhbinder Singh Lidder, the Defence Adviser to the Chief of Defence Staff (CDS) General Bipin Rawat, was cremated with full military honours at Brar Square crematorium in Delhi Cantonment on Friday. Lidder was among the 13 people who died in the Indian Air Force helicopter crash in Tamil Nadu's Coonoor on Wednesday.
Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, National Security Advisor Ajit Doval and Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar were present at the last rites and laid wreaths on the mortal remains of Brigadier LS Lidder. While his wife and daughter broke down while paying their last respects to him.
Mournful visuals showed Brigadier's wife in tears kneeling by the head of her husband's coffin, which was draped with the national flag and decked with flowers. Brigadier's daughter was by her mother's side, fighting back tears of her own while paying her last respects to her father, ANI reported.
According to reports, Brigadier Lidder’s wife was quoted Geetika Lidder saying, “We must give him a good farewell, a smiling send-off, I am a soldier's wife. It's a big loss.” His daughter Aashna, only 17, was trying to come to terms with the loss. She said, “He was with me for 17 years, we will go ahead with happy memories. My father was a hero, my best friend. Maybe it was destined and better things will come our way. He was my biggest motivator.”
The three service chiefs - Army Chief General MM Naravane, Navy Chief Admiral R Hari Kumar and IAF chief Air Chief Marshal VR Chaudhari too paid their last respects to Brig LS Lidder.
Along with Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika Rawat, Lidder was among the 13 killed when a Mi17V5 helicopter carrying them crashed in Tamil Nadu on Wednesday.
Also read: Explained: How turbulence may have caused General Bipin Rawat's helicopter crash
Brigadier Lidder was defence assistant to the CDS since January 2021. He was commissioned in the Jammu and Kashmir Rifles (JAKRIF) in December 1990 and commanded a battalion of the JAKRIF in Congo as UN peacekeeping force. He also commanded a brigade on India's northern borders.
He served as director at the Military Operations Directorate and also as defence assistant at Kazakhstan. Approved for the Major General rank, he was due to take over a division. He is survived by wife Geetika Lidder and a daughter.
