New York: Indian Ambassador to Vietnam and former Consul General of India in New York died with his wife and son in a plane crash about 4 miles from Bangkok.
Arun Patwardan 48, his wife Suhasini Patwardhan and their son Rishikesh died as an Air Vietnam’s plane exploded after crashing near Thailand’s capital on September 9.
- Gill, director State Institute of Science Education Chandigarh was one of the members of a seven member delegation of educationists which had gone to Vietnam for a study of population education in that country.
Patwardhan was Consul General in New York from ‘August 1983 to 1986 where his tenure was marked by a confrontational attitude towards the Sikh community in the wake of the Indian Army’s bloody assault on the Golden Temple in June 1984 and the massacre of Sikhs in Delhi and other places in the wake of Mrs. Indira Gandhi’s assassination.
He took over as consul General in Karachi, Pakistan in 1986 where again he had ugly confrontations with Sikh pilgrims in Pakistan.
Article extracted from this publication >> September 23, 1988
