Grand Salute to corona warriors! Indian Armed Forces shower respect to frontline soldiers treating COVID patients

New Delhi, May 3: All three services of the Indian Armed Forces displayed solidarity with the corona warriors who are working at the frontline to fight the pandemic in country on Sunday. The thanks-giving activities started off with laying of wreaths at the police memorial in Delhi and in several other cities on Sunday morning to honour the police personnel deployed for enforcement of the nationwide lockdown as revealed by the officials.

 

The armed forces made elaborate arrangements to conduct aerial fly-pasts, light up ships at sea and showered flower petals on several hospitals across the country. The IAF helicopters showered flower petals on select hospitals in multiple cities including Leh, Chandigarh, Dehradun, Gandhinagar, Mumbai, Jaipur, Varanasi, Patna, Lucknow, Bhopal, Ranchi, Raipur, Kolkata, Itanagar and Shillong.

 

In Delhi, the stated helicopters dropped petals on a number of hospitals including AllMS, Deen Dayal Upadhyay hospital, GTB, LNJP, Ram Manohar Lohia hospital, Safdarjung, Sir Ganga Ram hospital, Baba Saheb Ambedkar hospital, Max hospital in Saket, Apollo Indraprastha hospital and Army Research and Referral hospital.

 

Beginning with the wreath-laying ceremony in Police Memorial Delhi and in several other cities, the event followed a fly-pasts by fighter jets and transport aircraft of the Indian Air Force, covering a sizeable number of cities and towns across the country beginning 10 am. This is after Chief of Defence Staff Gen Bipin Rawat announced that the three services would carry out a series of activities to thank the corona warriors.

 

Fighter aircraft formations, comprising Sukhoi-30 MKI, MiG-29 and Jaguar, flew over Rajpath, Delhi's centrepiece boulevard, and orbited over the city for around 30 minutes this morning. In addition, C-130 transport aircraft followed a similar profile as fighters covered the entire Delhi and NCR region. The aircraft flew at an approximate height of 500 metres to 1000 metres keeping aerospace safety in mind especially in respect of bird activity.

 

 

Meanwhile, the military bands played patriotic tunes outside various civil hospitals treating coronavirus patients across the country. Separately, Indian Navy helicopters will shower petals on Kasturba Gandhi hospital and naval medical hospital Ashwini in Mumbai, GMC and ESI hospitals in Goa, Ernakulam General hospital in Kochi, Government TB and Chest hospital in Vizag and GB Pant hospital in Port Blair.

 

Navy officials said the Western Naval Command will illuminate five naval ships from 7:30 pm to 11:59 pm off the Gateway of India in Mumbai. They would display banners like 'India Salutes Corona Warriors' and will sound the siren of the ships and fire flares at 7:30 pm at anchorage. Additionally, the Naval air stations at Goa would organise a human chain on the runway to honour the 'corona warriors'. The Eastern Naval Command will illuminate two ships at anchorage at Visakhapatnam coast.