Lance Naik Hanamanthappa was buried at the Panchayat ground in his village Betadyur in Dharwad district.
Thousands of people gathered in a small Karnataka village to bid farewell to
Lance Naik Hanamanthappa Koppad, who died in a Delhi hospital yesterday, four days after he was miraculously rescued alive from Siachen.
The 33-year-old soldier was buried at the Panchayat ground in his village Bettadur in Dharwad district a little after noon on Friday.
As the nation mourned Lance Naik, his body was taken to Hubli from Delhi, where several thousand people paid homage to him at the Jawaharlal Nehru stadium.
Lance Naik Hanamanthappa's body was then taken to his village, 17 km from Hubli. The many policemen on duty had a tough time controlling the at least 5000 people who gathered to pay their respects at a school ground.
People packed rooftops and or climbed mounds of sand to try and catch a last glimpse of the hero and shower flower petals on his body. Many waved the Indian tricolour, singing songs in his praise.
The Lance Naik is survived by his wife, Mahadevi Ashok Bilebal, and a two-year-old daughter. A day before an avalanche buried the Army post he was at, the soldier had spoken to his family and promised to come home on a holiday.
He was rescued on Monday, unconscious and barely breathing after spending six days buried alive under 25 feet of ice at the Siachen glacier. The Lance Naik was found by rescuers, who worked night and day cutting through the hard ice, in a fibre-reinforced hut that had served as the base at 19,600 feet on the glacier. Next to him were the bodies of nine soldiers from his 19 Madras regiment.
Lance Naik Hanamanthappa's survival was called the "the Siachen miracle". He was rushed to the RR Hospital in Delhi, where he died on Thursday morning.