Sunday, February 19, 2012

Body of Indian stuck at Muscat airport after coffin not loaded on flight

Relatives in India in anxious wait for remains of man who is reported to have committed suicide

The dead body of an Indian expatriate has been lying at Seeb Airport in Muscat in Oman for two days now, as an Indian airline’s cargo handlers “forgot” to load the coffin on the plane.

Relatives have been waiting to receive and cremate the body of the dead man who committed suicide about 15 days ago.

Airline and cargo officials are now working to repatriate the body of Jinesh Chandran (24) who killed himself on February 5 at Saham in Oman.

The body was to be sent home by an Air India Express flight from Muscat to Kozhikode at 1.45pm and his relatives were waiting at Kozhikode airport to receive the body.

C M Jabbar, a Muscat-based social worker of Kairali, a socio-cultural organisation, said: “It is the first time that a coffin was forgotten by ground-handling staff at the airport. The coffin is in a big box and no one can miss the box as all the names and details of the airline and the dead man are written on the box."

He said arrangements were being made to repatriate the body on an Air India Express flight on Sunday. “When we repatriate a dead body, normally the box is handed over to the airport cargo staff and the rest is their responsibility,” he said.

“The man had died about two weeks ago and our social workers struggled to send the body home but there was a long delay due to public holidays and an additional official holiday. The Indian Embassy in Muscat and social workers supervised the post mortem and other procedures to repatriate the body. It is unfortunate that the dead body has been stranded in the airport for two days now,” he added.

“We had completed all formalities to repatriate the dead body and Air India Express was supposed to carry the dead body from Muscat to Calicut at 1.45 pm on Saturday and relatives had been informed about the arrival of the body,” said another social worker from Kairali.

According to Air India officials, the cargo containing the dead body was not loaded on time and the problem occurred in the cargo handling and clearing section in the airport. According to the cargo agency, they had deposited the box containing the body at Seeb Airport at 11.30am on Saturday, but the cargo handling section failed to load it on time, leaving the dead body stranded there.

Rajeevan, uncle of the deceased man, waiting to receive the coffin at Kozhikode airport, said: “It is unfortunate that the cargo handlers forgot to load a dead body. About 15 family members and friends had arranged an ambulance and reached the airport to receive the dead body.

All other arrangements had been made to cremate the body. We enquired at the cargo section of Air India and they have assured that the body will reach by Sunday’s flight, which leaves Muscat at 2.25 India time.”

“We had paid Rs4,000 to arrange an ambulance and we are again arranging another ambulance for today. Instead of carrying the dead body, we travelled back from Calicut to our native place in the ambulance. Jinesh left for Oman about a year ago and it is very unfortunate that he is coming back in a coffin.”

Another reason for the delay in repatriation of Jinesh’s body was that his Omani sponsor had asked the family of the dead man to pay Omani riyals 1,500 (about Dh 15,000) to meet the body repatriation expenses.

The Indian embassy and social workers intervened after which the sponsor agreed to bear the expense, Jabbar said.


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