An IAF aircraft carrying the mortal remains of 14 of the 45 Indians who died in a devastating fire at a building in Kuwait landed in Palam Technical Airport in the national capital from Kerala's Kochi on Friday evening.
After the plane arrived in the national capital, newly elected BJP MPs including Northwest Delhi’s Yogender Chandolia, New Delhi’s Bansuri Swaraj and South Delhi’s Kamaljeet Sehrawat stood on the tarmac with folded hands as the caskets were lowered from the aircraft. They paid their tributes to them by laying wreaths on the caskets.
“A special Indian Air Force aircraft carrying the bodies of 45 Indians killed in a massive fire in a multi-storey building in the Mangaf area of southern Kuwait on Wednesday reached Delhi's Palam Airport via Kochi today. After reaching there, today I handed over the bodies of the deceased to their families and paid tribute. During this, I experienced heart-wrenching pain. May God give peace to all those departed souls and give strength to their families to bear this grief,” said Chandolia in a post on X (formerly Twitter).
A C-130J aircraft carrying the 45 bodies landed at the Kochi international airport around 10.30 am. Thirty-one bodies were received at the airport by Central and state ministers, including Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan.
The remaining 14 bodies were sent to Delhi in the same aircraft as a domestic flight from Kochi, airport authorities in Kerala said. The special IAF aircraft had taken off for Kochi from Kuwait on Friday morning.
According to the Indian embassy, out of the 45 Indians killed in the fire incident, 23 were from Kerala, seven from Tamil Nadu, three each from Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, two from Odisha and one each from Bihar, Punjab, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Haryana, according to the embassy. The mortal remains would be handed over to the respective state government representatives in Kochi and Delhi.
At least 49 foreign workers were killed and 50 others injured in the fire on Wednesday at the seven-storey building where 196 migrant workers were staying in the southern city of Mangaf.
