NEW DELHI: An
Indian Air Force
plane on Friday arrived in Kochi carrying the bodies of 45 Indians who were killed in the
Kuwait building fire
.
Minister Kirti Vardhan Singh
, who was also on the plane after overseeing operations in Kuwait, thanked the authorities for the quick process. He also credited Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the smooth process which led to the quick identification of the victims.
“The moment our government got to know that this incident had taken place,
PM Modi
immediately convened a meeting and instructed us to reach Kuwait immediately and take all possible steps so that the mortal remains could be brought back as soon as possible. We reached Kuwait and PM Modi had already spoken to the authorities there, to the foreign minister there and to the Emir of Kuwait,” he said.
“I would like to thank to the authorities as they did everything possible, they took all possible measures and fully cooperated in having all the papers completed, identification was done in such a short time because normally this could have taken a week or at least ten days. On PM Modi’s instructions, the authorities were very quick about it…” Singh told the reporters at the airport.
The IAF sent a C-130J transport aircraft to Kuwait on Thursday night to bring back the bodies.
Out of the 45 Indians killed in the fire incident, 23 were from Kerala, seven from Tamil Nadu, three each from Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, two from Odisha and one each from Bihar, Punjab, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Haryana, according to the embassy.
Out of the 45 Indians killed in the fire incident, 23 were from Kerala, seven from Tamil Nadu, three each from Andhra Pradesh and Uttar Pradesh, two from Odisha and one each from Bihar, Punjab, Karnataka, Maharashtra, West Bengal, Jharkhand and Haryana, according to the embassy.
The mortal remains would be handed over to the respective state government representatives in Kochi and Delhi. Kuwaiti authorities handed over the mortal remains after conducting
DNA
tests on bodies as part of the identification process. Earlier MoS Singh had said that some bodies were charred beyond recognition.
According to report, the fire was caused by an electrical circuit. The Kuwaiti authorities said they identified the bodies of 45 Indians and three Filipino nationals killed in the fire.
