Hundreds honour murdered Indian

Officials pay tribute as Mr Maniyappan's coffin returns to Delhi

Hundreds of people have gathered in a southern Indian village for the cremation of the driver the Taleban said they killed in Afghanistan.

The body of Ramankutty Maniyappan was received with state honours in his native Kerala.

Mr Maniyappan, a driver with India's Border Roads Organisation, was found on Wednesday by a road in southern Nimroz province. His throat had been slit.

His eight-year-old son lit the funeral pyre according to Hindu custom.

The BBC's Sridevi Pillai in Trivandrum says Kerala's chief minister received Mr Maniyappan's body at the air force base on Friday afternoon where it was given a full guard of honour by the state's police.

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Afghanistan

The body was later driven to Mr Maniyappan's birth place in Chengoli in Alapuzha district.

Hundreds of people lined both sides of the highway to pay homage to the man who they said gave away his life in an attempt to cement relations between India and Afghanistan.

Many were in tears. Crowds chanted "Bharat Mata ki Jai" - Long Live Mother India - as they showered flowers on the body.

Mr Maniyappan is survived by his wife Bindu and two children, aged eight and two.

Too young to realise the tragedy, the children played around the pyre being built to cremate their father.

Difficult childhood

Mr Maniyappan's mother Maniamma told the BBC: "I have no tears left. I have lost the capacity to cry. He was everything to us."

Mr Maniyappan is survived by his wife and two children

Friends and neighbours, too, were in a state of shock.

"He did not harm anyone, so how could anyone do this to him?" asked one.

Mr Maniyappan's neighbour said the driver had had a difficult childhood and faced acute poverty.

He was working hard to ensure his children got the best education.

India's government called the killing "inhuman and barbaric".

A Taleban spokesman told news agencies on Tuesday that Mr Maniyappan had been shot dead after his company failed to heed a 48-hour deadline to quit Afghanistan.

Mr Maniyappan was among 300 Indians and Iranians working on a $83m road project in Nimroz province.

India's federal government has announced financial compensation of $21,000 for his family and promised to fund his children's education.