New Delhi: India is sending a high-level delegation to Iran for the funeral of former Supreme Leader, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei. It will likely include Bihar Governor Lt. Gen. Syed Ata Hasnain, and Minister of State in the Ministry of External Affairs, Pabitra Margherita. However, there is little clarity yet on who will lead the delegation.
Diplomatic sources confirmed to ThePrint the probable inclusion of Lt Gen Hasnain and Margherita. However, government sources have made it clear that no decision has yet been made on the level of Indian representation at the funeral.
The delegation is likely to depart for Tehran later this week as the funeral procession begins there on 4 July. Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi was officially invited by Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian last Tuesday to attend the six-day procession.
The Iranian invitation was handed over to the Ministry of External Affairs last Tuesday through a note verbale. Four additional bodies of Khamenei’s family members, including Mesbah al-Hoda Bagheri, Seyyedeh Boshra Hosseini Khamenei, Zahra Haddad-Adel, and Zahra Mohammadi Golpayegani, will escort the former Supreme Leader’s body to the holy city of Qom, where prayers are to be held on 7 July.
The bodies will then travel to the Iraqi cities of Najaf and Karbala before finally being interred in Mashhad on 9 July. Tehran has invited a number of foreign dignitaries to attend the funeral procession.
Khamenei was killed on 28 February, along with a number of his immediate family members after US and Israel launched joint strikes on Iran. The three countries remained at war until earlier this month, when the US and Iran announced an interim deal to pause hostilities while they engaged in negotiations for a larger peace deal as well as a deal on the Iranian nuclear programme.
India had conveyed its condolences over the death of Khamenei on 5 March, when Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri signed the condolence book at the Embassy of Iran in New Delhi. Until that point, there had been no official condemnation or condolence message publicly stated over the Ayatollah’s death.
Iran and the US in recent days have exchanged strikes as the interim deal remains fragile. The two sides held discussions last week in Geneva, as a part of the larger aim of concluding a deal within a 60-day time period.
India has welcomed the memorandum of understanding (MoU) signed between Iran and the US on 17 June. The MoU was brokered by Pakistan, while Qatar helped facilitate the discussions in Switzerland.
In 2024, India’s then Vice President Jagdeep Dhankhar had travelled to Iran to attend the funeral of President Ebrahim Raisi and Foreign Minister Hossein Amir-Abdollahian, who had perished in an helicopter accident on 19 May.
(Edited by Niyati Kothiyal)