PUNE, Jan. 29 -- The fireball triggered by the crash was so intense that the identity of the five individuals who perished in the accident in Baramati, including deputy chief minister Ajit Pawar, was established not by identifying their remains but their personal belongings. For Pawar, it was his wristwatch that helped confirm his identity. "His face was not recognisable. It was his wristwatch and the clothes he was wearing that helped identify him," said a local resident, one of the first responders at the crash site. The irony was painfully clear. The clock, the election symbol of the Nationalist Congress Party (NCP) Pawar helmed, ultimately proved decisive in establishing his identity. Locals who witnessed the accident were first to reach the site. Abhijit Darade said he had received a phone call early on Wednesday from a friend, Anil Nimbalkar, who worked in a company owned by Ajit Pawar. Nimbalkar told him a plane carrying Pawar had crashed not far from where he lived. "As soon as I got the call, I rushed to the site near the Baramati airstrip," Darade said. When he got there, he saw the aircraft's charred wreckage. "Three bodies had already been removed. I helped to remove the remaining bodies from the debris. Everything was gutted and visual identification of those who had perished was not possible," he recalls. Asked how Pawar's body had been identified, Darade said local NCP workers were present at the site. "A couple of them were close to Ajit Dada and identified his body via the wristwatch he was wearing," said Darade. NCP leader and MLC Amol Mitkari said the manner of identification underlines the pain of Pawar's final moments. "Because of Ajit Dada, a grassroots worker like me became an MLC. It is extremely unfortunate that he had to be identified by his wristwatch," Mitkari said. Pawar was travelling to Baramati to campaign for the zilla parishad and panchayat samiti elections....