KATHMANDU: The last rites of the four members of a Thane family who were killed along with 18 others in the Tara Air plane crash in Nepal’s mountainous Mustang district were performed on Thursday on the banks of River Bagmati near Pashupatinath temple here.
The bodies were brought to Aryaghat Cremation Centre at Pashupatinath Temple premises on Thursday morning. It took two days to complete the postmortem of the 22 bodies of the victims.
Businessman Ashok Kumar Tripathi (54) and his Thane-based estranged wife Vaibhavi Bandekar Tripathi (51) were on a reunion trip to the Himalayan country along with their son Dhanush (22) and daughter Ritika (15) when the tragedy struck.
Tripathi’s elder brother and wife were among the relatives who were present when the last rites of the four members of the family were performed. The bodies of 13 other passengers and three crew members were also cremated. There was a big crowd at the Pashupatinath Temple to see the cremation. Only 10 of the 22 victims’ bodies were intact, said sources at Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital in Maharajgunj.
The Nepal government has formed a five-member commission of inquiry to find out the cause of the Tara Air plane crash. According to a preliminary investigation carried out by the Civil Aviation Authority of Nepal, bad weather was the primary reason behind the crash. The black box of the plane was also retrieved on Tuesday.