The Hindu : Front Page : Kasula Suryanarayana's body brought home

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Tuesday, May 02, 2006

Front Page

Front Page

Kasula Suryanarayana's body brought home

Staff Reporter

High drama precedes the arrival of the body from Afghanistan

FLORAL TRIBUTES: Wreaths being placed on behalf of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the body of K. Suryanarayana at IGI airport in New Delhi on Monday - Photo: V. Sudershan

HYDERABAD: The body of slain Hyderabad engineer Kasula Surayanarayana was brought home on an Indian Airlines flight from Delhi late on Monday evening even as his wife attempted suicide an hour before the flight landed here.

High drama preceded the arrival of the body with Manjula, Satyanarayana's wife, consuming phenyl at her house in Malkajgiri. She was rushed to a private hospital where doctors declared her out of danger.

Manjula was reportedly distressed at the dramatic turn of events earlier in the day with a woman from Warangal approaching the Hyderabad police claiming that she was married to Suryanarayana in 2002 and that she had an eight-month-old baby from him. With the news being flashed on all the television channels, a vexed Manjula is said to have resorted to suicide.

According to a New Delhi report, the body was earlier brought to the Capital from Kabul before being flown to Hyderabad. Draped in the national Tricolour, the brown coffin containing his mortal remains was placed on Shraddhanjali Sthal, granite slabs at the airport that earlier bore the weight of the soldiers killed during the Kargil war. A Hanuman pendant and a golden bracelet belonging to Suryanarayana were also kept in the coffin.

Senior officials of the Andhra Pradesh Government received the body. At a simple and brief ceremony, wreaths were placed on the coffin on behalf of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y. S. Rajasekhara Reddy and Resident Commissioner of Andhra Pradesh R. P. Agrawal.

A sombre homecoming for the engineer, his body was accompanied by General Manager of Al Moayed Manish Aggarwal and colleague J. Srinivas from Kabul.

Describing Suryanarayana as a nice human being, Mr. Aggarwal said he worked with him for a while. "Suryanarayana was my friend. He was a very quiet person. He had told me that he wanted to come back for some medical tests. I told him that he should send me a request. He was due for a holiday in two months,'' he said.

Mr. Aggarwal added: "We have adequate security measures. Our people travel in bullet-proof cars with a security team." He along with Chief Executive Officer of Al Moayed Pankaj Seghal and two other representatives of the company accompanied the body from New Delhi to Hyderabad.

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