NSG commando’s last rites in Kerala today

BENGALURU: Karnataka CM Siddharamaiah today announced Rs30 lakh as compensation to the family of Lt Col Niranjan EK who died fighting terrorists at Pathankot

Updated At : 07:29 AM Jan 05, 2016 IST

Lt Col Niranjan's father EK Sivaranjam (C) consoles his daughter-in-law Radhika in Bengaluru. pti

Shubhadeep Choudhury

Tribune News Service

Bengaluru, January 4

Karnataka CM Siddharamaiah today announced Rs30 lakh as compensation to the family of Lt Col Niranjan EK who died fighting terrorists at Pathankot.

Siddaramaiah said, “Karnataka had given Rs30 lakh as compensation to the family of Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, a martyr in the 26/11 Mumbai attacks. We will give the same compensation to Niranjan’s family.”

Kumar’s body was brought to the HAL Airport at Bengaluru today and kept at the mortuary at Command Hospital. The body was brought to his residence around 7 am where family members burst into tears after they saw the mortal remains. Niranjan’s mother is no more. His family comprised his wife and a young child, father, elder brother, sister and stepmother and a stepbrother. His brother E Sharath is an IAF pilot. Union ministers Ananth Kumar and Sadananda Gowda, Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, former Union minister Veerappa Moily paid tributes to the martyr.

The body was then flown by a Mi-17 helicopter to Niranjan’s native village Palakkad in Kerala where the cremation would take place tomorrow.