NEW DELHI: Huge sorrowful crowds bearing mountains of floral wreathes today [Jan 11] received the silver white Soviet Ilyushin-18 plane as it glided into New Delhi’s international airport bearing the body of the late Indian Prime Minister Lal Bahadur Shastri from the Tashkent peace talks where he died early this morning.

The special plane bringing the body of Premier Shastri, with the Soviet Premier Mr Alexei Kosygin aboard, landed at 1.30 p.m. local time.

The body will lie in state overnight and the funeral will take place tomorrow. The Indian Government today announced 12 days of national mourning for Mr Shastri.

Earlier in Tashkent, the body of Prime Minister Shastri was borne through the Uzbek Capital on a Soviet gun carriage with President Ayub Khan a leading pall-bearer.

Fellow pall-bearer was Soviet Prime Minister Kosygin whose initiative brought the Indian and Pakistani leaders to a historic agreement yesterday.

A gun salute boomed out over the frosty airport as the body was put aboard a Soviet plane for the journey to New Delhi.

A wintry sun shone over Tashkent as the mournful procession moved along the route where Mr Shastri had been cheered on his arrival last week.

Nine hours after signing with President Ayub a historic declaration abjuring war between their countries, Mr Shastri suffered a heart attack and died.

Mr Shastri had returned to his villa from Mr Kosygin’s reception at 10 p.m. and had a quiet dinner half an hour later.

Soon afterwards, he talked on the telephone to his son Hari and his son-in-law, Mr V. N. Singh, in New Delhi, then worked on his papers till midnight, when he went to bed. At 1.24 a.m. he felt ill, got up from his bed and went to his doctor’s room nearby. He was coughing and said he felt unwell. He was calling “Doctor, Doctor.”

Published in Dawn, January 12th, 2016