Pune bids adieu to Anuj Bidve

Thousands of Pune citizens braved the cold to join the family and relatives of Anuj Bidve, an Indian student slain in Britain, at his last rites conducted here on Saturday evening.

Hundreds of people, including Leader of Opposition in Maharashtra Legislative Council Vinod Tawdethe of Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), BJP national spokesperson Prakash Javadekar and Pune MP Girish Bapat, earlier visited the Bidve residence at Wadgaonsheri.

Bidve's body, lying in a flower bedecked open coffin, was taken in a procession to the nearby Yerawada Muktidham crematorium and consigned to flames, amid chanting of vedic hymns, before several thousand mourners.

This afternoon, the grieving parents of Bidve returned with his body from Britain to Mumbai, and later to their home town Pune.

Anuj, 23, an engineering student was shot dead Dec 26 in the British city of Salford.

He was shot from point blank range while walking along Ordsall Lane along with his friend, creating a furore in Britain and India.

Earlier this week, a team of British police visited the family in Pune and met them twice.

Anuj's parents left for Britain with them to collect his body and returned Saturday for the last rites.