Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai said on Friday that “offensive tweets and social media posts” about the helicopter crash in which Chief of Defence Staff Bipin Rawat died will not be tolerated.

Bipin Rawat, his wife Madhulika Rawat and 11 others died on Wednesday in the helicopter crash in the Katteri-Nanchappanchathram area of Tamil Nadu’s Coonoor district. The helicopter took off from the Sulur air base in Tamil Nadu and was on its way to the Defence Services Staff College in Wellington, nearly three kilometres north of Coonoor.

“I strongly condemn all such messages and have instructed our police officials to take strict disciplinary legal action against the offenders,” he said. “They should be booked immediately as this is absolutely unpardonable.”

Earlier on Friday, Bommai claimed that “some persons with perverted minds” tweeted derogatory and celebratory messages about Rawat’s death, ANI reported. He said that the police had been instructed to take legal action against such persons.

“Every Indian should strongly condemn this act...perverted minds against the man who led the armed forces to defend the country,” the chief minister said. “This perversion cannot be tolerated.”

Meanwhile, the Indian Air Force urged people to avoid “uninformed speculation” about the helicopter crash. It added that it has constituted a tri-service Court of Inquiry to look into the causes of the crash. “The inquiry would be completed expeditiously and facts brought out,” the Air Force said on Twitter.

The Chief of Defence Staff and his wife were cremated at the Brar Square crematorium in Delhi on Friday, ANI reported.

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