Kerala - Kannur   

Crash leaves families in grief

KANNUR: Kunnothuvalappil House at Kochipally near here was in grief after it was confirmed that a member of the house was one of the passengers who died in the plane crash in Mangalore on Saturday morning.

K.V. Abdul Samad, 46, working as an office assistant in Dubai, was to have been at the house by noon on Saturday after three years. His wife, Ayisha, and children, Shamseel and Shamsiya, who had left for the Mangalore airport by road in the early hours to receive him, however, were shell-shocked when they heard at the airport that the Air India Express plane crashed near the airport.

“The family heard about the tragedy when Shamseel, a chartered accountancy student, contacted the house in the morning immediately after the accident,” said V. Muhas, a relative. Though Samad was among the passengers confirmed as dead in the accident, till this afternoon neither his wife and children nor other relatives who rushed to Mangalore to help them could find his body at the hospitals, where the bodies of passengers were being brought in, he said.

Samad had been working in Dubai for 18 years. “Of late, his major concern was his son's studies,” said P.P. Majeed, another relative who was also working in Dubai and was now on leave.

Control room

Samad is one of the four passengers hailing from the district whose names were among those passengers died in the crash. A control room was opened at the Collectorate.

Couple dead

The village of Pookoththeru, near Taliparamba, was also in grief as A. Komalam, 58, hailing from the village, met with the tragedy along with her husband T.T.V. Bhaskaran, 70, president of the Neeleswaram Urban Cooperative Bank.

The couple had settled at Neeleswaram in Kasaragod for the past several years. They had gone to Dubai to see their three children who were staying there with their families, said A. Padmanabhan, brother of Komalam.

Retired as Additional Executive Engineer in the Public Works Department, Bhaskaran had been active in local-level politics at Neeleswaram.

Unconfirmed reports

According to information from the control room, two more passengers on board the plane, Sulekha Bhanu and Rajan Pulikkodan, are also believed to be from Kannur. The officials are awaiting more information.

K.P. Mayinkutty, hailing from Kurumathur, near Taliparamba, was among the few passengers who had a miraculous escape.

Mayinkutty, 48, was settled at Kambil here with wife, Beefathima, and children, Munawar and Jumana. Working in Sharjah, Mayinkutty escaped after he jumped from a hole in the fuselage. He is now in hospital in Mangalore with minor injuries. His wife and children and other relatives had gone to Mangalore to see him.

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Crash leaves families in grief

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