The Hindu : Karnataka / Bangalore News : A five-hour ordeal

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Apr 05, 2006

Karnataka

Karnataka - Bangalore

A five-hour ordeal

Staff Reporter

BANGALORE: The ordeal the relatives of Sikhil Saroj Babu had to undergo at the city airport when his body was brought on Monday points to official "apathy" to personal grief. He was a victim of the boat tragedy in Bahrain on Friday.

The body was brought in a Gulf Air flight that landed at 5.10 a.m. But the relatives had to wait for over five hours for the body. The reason was that Customs personnel had to get clearance from their superiors.

The body was handed over to them around 10.30 a.m. and owing to this, the cremation, originally scheduled for 7.30 a.m., had to be postponed.

Sikhil (36) was employed as manager with Manama-based OTIS Elevators. His wife, Sagina, and daughters, five-year-old Shreya and eight-month-old Sneha, were in the city with his father, Saroj Babu, a retired officer of Military Engineering Services. The family hails from Thalassery in Kannur district, Kerala.

Santhosh, one of the relatives, said that Customs personnel attended to their request to release the body only two-and-half hours after the flight landed. "We waited for 2-3 hours at the cargo section. Then they asked us to go to the Customs section, where they asked for many documents. That delayed the process by another two hours. They could have let us go much earlier," he said.

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