The NoRKA Roots, field agency of Non-Resident Keralites Affairs Department, will bear the expenses for bringing the bodies of the tourists from the State who died at a hotel in Kathmandu. chairman K. Varadarajan has said.
Mr. Varadarajan told The Hindu here on Wednesday that the expenses for bringing the bodies were being done as per the directions of the State government. With the Indian Embassy in Nepal reportedly refusing to bear the expenses on technical grounds, the State government stepped in to take up the task.
Tourism Minister Kadakampally Surendran spoke to Union Minister of State for External Affairs V. Muraleedharan on the issue and the latter is understood to have responded positively. Still, there was a lack of clarity and hence the State government directed NoRKA to foot the bill. The bodies were expected to be transported on Thursday morning itself, Mr. Varadarajan said.
The NoRKA Roots, in a communication to the Indian Embassy in Nepal, said that it was ready to bear all the expenses involved in bringing back the mortal remains of Praveen Krishnan Nair and family and A.P. Renjith Kumar and family from Kathmandu. It also urged the Embassy to provide the bank account details for transferring the funds.
Mr. Muraleedharan told The Hindu that unlike reported by a section of the media, the kin of the victims’ family had not placed any request for financial assistance with the embassy. A relative of Praveen Krishnan Nair, who met him in Delhi, too had not made any request for funds.
The embassy officials informed Mr. Muraleedharan that the relatives of both families had told them that NoRKA was meeting the expenses and hence no financial assistance was needed from them. Mr. Varadarajan clarified that all arrangements had been made for bringing the bodies from Kathmandu to Delhi and from there to Thiruvananthapuram and Kozhikode on Thursday.
