Five bodies of plane crash victims handed over to relatives

By A Staff Reporter,Kathmandu, July 27: As the government and Saurya Airlines have not yet resolved the issues of compensation and insurance amount, most of the relatives of those who died in the plane crash have not agreed to claim and accept the bodies. 

As of Friday evening, only five bodies have been claimed by their relatives and taken away for the funeral procession, according to Deputy Superintendent of Police (DSP) and In-charge of Maharajgunj Police Circle, Amar Thapa.

 Although it was said that the bodies would be handed over to the relatives by Friday as the autopsy has been completed, still no agreement has reached on the matter of compensation, said DSP Thapa. 

According to him, five bodies have been taken for the funeral process by their family members. 

“The bodies of Uddhav Puri, Aswin Niraula, Shyam Bindukar, co-pilot Sushant Katuwal, and Raja Ram Acharya have been claimed by their relatives,” said DSP Thapa.

Relatives of the deceased have gathered at the Teaching Hospital in a hurry to claim the bodies but when the compensation issues were not resolved, some of the relatives have not yet agreed to take away the bodies, said police.

Some families and relatives of the deceased have alleged that they were forcibly made to sign documents to claim the bodies after being called inside to confirm the bodies. 

By Friday afternoon, most of the bodies had been identified, though there were some difficulties in identifying the bodies that were badly charred, according to the doctors. 

Dr. Gopal Chaudhary, Head of the Forensic Department at the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital, said that the process to hand over the identified bodies to the relatives have begun. 

On Wednesday morning at 11:11 am, 18 individuals died when a Saurya Airlines plane crashed at Tribhuvan International Airport in Kathmandu. 

The captain, Manish Ratna Shakya, who is the sole survivor in the crash, is undergoing treatment at the Kathmandu Medical College and is recuperating well, according to the hospital.