Minister of State for External Affairs Pabitra Margherita and Bihar Governor Lieutenant General Syed Ata Hasnain (retd) will represent India at the funeral of former Iranian Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khamenei.Iranian President Masoud Pezeshkian had invited Prime Minister Narendra Modi to attend the ceremony.Khamenei was killed on February 28 in the opening salvo of the US-Israeli war on Iran in a strike on a compound in Tehran.The funeral ceremonies will start on July 4 and conclude on July 9 with the burial in Khamenei’s hometown of Mashhad. The funeral was initially supposed to take place in March, but was postponed because of the war.As per the Iranian media, Khamenei’s body will lie in state at the Tehran Mosalla on July 4 and 5. Then, a funeral procession will be held in Tehran on July 6 and another funeral ceremony will take place in Qom, a city holy for the Shia Muslims, on July 7. Finally, on June 9, he will be buried at the shrine of the eighth Shia imam in Mashhad following a funeral procession through the city.


