Chennai: Indian Coast Guard Director General Rakesh Pal, aged 59, died in Chennai on Sunday evening after suffering a massive heart attack. Pal collapsed at the Chennnai airport while he was slated to receive Defence Minister Rajnath Singh, who had arrived for multiple official engagements from New Delhi.
Doctors at the airport tried to revive him and around 3.30 pm he was rushed in an ambulance to the Rajiv Gandhi Government General Hospital. Sources in the hospital said the Coast Guard top officer’s pulse and blood pressure had stopped by the time he was taken to the hospital. “He was put on defibrillator in the ambulance.
Though his pulse stopped, his heart was functioning. However, in the operation theatre he developed a massive cardiac arrest at around 7 pm, though we had done an angiogram and angioplasty,” a senior doctor confirmed..
The Defence Minister along with Tamil Nadu Chief Minister M K Stalin, after their official engagement, went to the hospital and paid homage to Pal’s mortal remains.
Later, Singh posted on X, “Deeply saddened at the untimely demise of Shri Rakesh Pal, DG, Indian Coast Guard in Chennai today. He was an able and committed officer under whose leadership ICG was making big strides in strengthening India’s maritime security. My heartfelt condolences to his bereaved family.”
