Ajit Pawar's funeral in Pune on Thursday; Modi, Shah expected to attend

Baramati: The last rites of Maharashtra Deputy Chief Minister Ajit Pawar, who died in a plane crash, will be performed with full state honours on Thursday in Baramati, Pune district.

The funeral is scheduled to take place at 11 am at the Vidya Pratishthan ground. Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Union Home Minister Amit Shah are likely to attend. The Nationalist Congress Party said leaders from across political parties are expected to be present.

Pawar is survived by wife Sunetra, a member of the Rajya Sabha, and two sons, Parth and Jay.

The state government has declared a public holiday on Wednesday and announced three days of state mourning.

The crash took place on Wednesday morning, shortly after Ajit Pawar and four others departed from Mumbai.

Those who lost their lives along with Pawar were Pinky Mali, Vidip Jadhav, Captain Shambhavi Pathak, and Captain Sumit Kapur.

Pinky Mali was an attendant on the Learjet 45 operated by Delhi-based VSR Ventures, which crash-landed at Baramati airport. She had been working as a flight attendant for the last five years. She started with Air India and moved to private chartered flights after a couple of years, reported PTI.

Vidip Jadhav was a police naik attached to the Mumbai police’s Special Protection Unit. A resident of Vitava near Thane, he is survived by his wife, son and mother. His family left for Baramati after being informed of the incident.

Captain Shambhavi Pathak was the co-pilot of the Learjet 46. According to her social media profile, she had been associated with VSR Ventures for the past three years. She underwent commercial pilot training in 2018–19 at the New Zealand International Commercial Pilot Academy Limited and later studied aeronautics, aviation, and aerospace science and technology at Mumbai University between 2020 and 2022.