Kochi (TIP)- Two days after they were killed in a devastating apartment fire in Kuwait’s Al Ahmadi governorate, the bodies of 45 Indian workers were on June 14 brought back to India by an Indian Air Force C130J aircraft, and given a guard of honour by senior government officials, including minister of state for external affairs Kirti Vardhan Singh and Kerala chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
The aircraft carrying the coffins first landed in Kochi on Friday morning, where 31 were unloaded and sent to respective villages in three states — Kerala, Tamil Nadu and Karnataka — and then made its way to New Delhi, where it was received by three members of Parliament. The rest of the 14 dead are from nine different states, most of them in northern India.
The June 12 fire in the Al-Mangaf building, the worst building fire in the Gulf country’s history, broke out at around 4.30am, and most deaths were due to smoke inhalation with most residents caught unawares. NBTC group, an engineering and construction firm partially owned by KG Abraham, 69, an industrialist originally from Kerala, had rented the building to house 195 workers, most of them workers from southern states.
Investigations in Kuwait have revealed that the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit, and two people have been held on charges that include “killing and injury by error due to negligence of security and safety precautions against fires”. A team probing the fire have found that inflammable material was used as partitions between apartments and between rooms, causing thick black smoke which suffocated people as they tried to run down the stairwell. Of the 49 people dead, 45 were from India, authorities said on Thursday. On Friday, Kuwaiti foreign minister Abdullah Al-Yahya said that one more person succumbed to injuries, taking the death toll to 50, of which 46 were Indians. When 31 bodies — 23 from Kerala, seven from Tamil Nadu and one from Karnataka — were brought out of the IAF aircraft on Friday morning, they were given a guard of honour by the Kerala police and Kerala CM Vijayan, and a host of others ministers — Union minister of state for petroleum and tourism Suresh Gopi and Tamil Nadu minister for minorities welfare KS Masthan. Each of them, as well as several ministers in the state government, MLAs, MPs and leaders of political party them sombrely placed wreaths on each coffin.
“The people who have succumbed in this tragedy were those who had gone (to Kuwait) as part of earning their livelihood. As much as we help their families, it will never be enough. I implore the Indian government to work with Kuwait to speed up the process of granting them adequate compensation. This is indeed a massive tragedy for Kerala and its people,” Vijayan said.
MoS Kirti Vardhan Singh, who flew to Kuwait on the instructions of PM Narendra Modi on Thursday to facilitate relief and rescue efforts, and travelled back with the bodies on Friday, said: “The moment our government found out that this incident had taken place, Prime Minister immediately convened a meeting and instructed us to reach Kuwait to take all possible steps so that the mortal remains can be brought back as soon as possible.” Source: HT