KOZHIKODE: As six-year-old Madhav looked on, the bodies of his father Ranjith Kumar, mother Indu Lakshmi and 2-year-old brother Vaishnav were brought to their new home in Mokavur on Friday. Madhav is the lone survivor of the heart-wrenching tragedy that took place at a mountainous resort in Nepal, wherein his family had died of possible asphyxiation in their room. Grief hung heavy in the air as hundreds including friends and relatives gathered to pay their tribute to the deceased.
After being brought from Nepal to Karipur International Airport, the bodies of Ranjith and family were taken to their newly-constructed house, adjacent to Indu’s ancestral home, in Mokavur. The bodies were kept at the house for a while to allow the public to pay respects, after which they were taken to Ranjith’s ancestral home in Kunnamangalam. The last rites of all three were performed here.
From relatives and townspeople to ministers and bureaucrats, huge crowds had gathered at both Mokavur and Kunnamangalam to pay homage to the deceased.
Minister for Transport A K Saseendran, District Collector Seeram Sambasiva Rao, Kozhikode MP M K Raghavan, city corporation mayor Thottathil Raveendran and other senior political party leaders attended the funeral ceremony. Meanwhile, the last rites of Dubai-based engineer Praveen Krishnan, his wife Saranya and their three children -- the family who had met with the same fate as Ranjith’s in Nepal -- were performed at their hometown inThiruvananthapuram.