Dateline Dehradun: Building material scattered around. Foundation pits gaping at the sky with labourers left speechless. Silver Heights, Jalvayu Vihar, some 15 kilometres from Dehradun was to be the retirement home of India’s first Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Bipin Rawat.
Just a week back CDS’s wife Madhulika Rawat was in Dehradun for the Bhoomi-Poojan of their home in Silver Heights. Sweets were distributed to labour as well as neighbours. All this has been replaced by a pall of gloom. Uttarakhand mourns the death of one of its own. India’s first Chief of Defence Staff, Gen. Bipin Rawat, and his wife Madhulika Rawat were all set to return to their roots in the hill-state of Uttarakhand on retirement to finally drop anchor in Dehradun.
The foundation work to build his retirement home with earthquake-resistant technology was ongoing on their plot at Silver Heights when information of the tragic incident of CDS Bipin Rawat’s helicopter crash poured in. Work at the construction site came to a halt as the tragic news trickled in and labourers and neighbours mourned the death of an exceptionally brilliant and brave officer and his wife.
Pauri plunged into grief when news of Gen. Bipin Rawat’s passing away trickled in. This was where he was born; this was where he had selected a piece of land in Sainj to build a home in the hills. Pauri, Sainj village was Gen. Bipin Rawat’s home in the hills. He and his family made it a point to make an annual visit to the village whenever work permitted.
Uttarakhand’s Chief Minister Pushkar Singh Dhami announced a three-day state mourning following the chopper crash in Coonoor that led to the death of thirteen people including the CDS and his wife. The national flag with fly at half mast on government buildings and all official events involving entertainment stand cancelled in Gen. Bipin Rawat’s home state.
