Headlines
Hundreds pay homage to murdered Indian techie
Bengaluru, March 15
Hundreds of people,
including family members, colleagues and central and state ministers, on
Sunday paid homage to the Indian software engineer who was murdered in
Australia on March 7.
The body of the 41-year-old Prabha from
global IT consulting firm Mindtree was flown to the city on Saturday
night. It was kept at her relative's house for people to pay their
respects.
"The last rites will be held at Prabha's village Amtur
near Mangaluru on Sunday evening," a family member told IANS before the
cortege was flown to Mangaluru by air ambulance. The village lies some
380 km away from here.
Union ministers from the state, Ananth
Kumar and D.V. Sadananda Gowda, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah,
Home Minister K.J. George and Infrastructure Minister Roshan Baig were
among the dignitaries who paid tributes to Prabha.
Prabha's husband Arun Kumar and her elder brother Shankar Shetty accompanied the cortege from Sydney via Singapore.
A
company's senior representative and Prabha's colleagues also visited
the house and mourned her tragic death. Prabha also leaves behind a
nine-year-old daughter, Meghana.
Even a week after Prabha was
stabbed to death at Parramatta Park in Sydney's Westmead suburb when she
was returning to her flat, investigation by Australian police have not
traced the unknown assailant.
Footage from close circuit
television cameras at the railway station showed Prabha walking towards
the park while talking on mobile phone, purportedly with her husband who
lives in Bengaluru with their only daughter.
Kumar later
revealed to the Australian police that he heard Prabha telling him that
she was stabbed despite pleading with the attacker not to harm her.
As the cell phone got disconnected immediately, Kumar could not hear further or know Prabha's condition subsequently.
On
learning Prabha's death due to stabbing, Kumar flew to Sydney on March 8
to join the investigation and bring her body to the city.
Autopsy showed that Prabha's throat was slit with a sharp-edged object.
According to Prabha's flatmate in Sydney, she believed to have seen the attacker approach her and begged for mercy.
"Don't
hurt me. I'll do whatever you want," Prabha was overheard saying on the
mobile and telling Kumar immediately that "he stabbed me," twice in
Kannada, their mother tongue.
Prabha was in Sydney since 2012 on a three-year onsite project work and was return to Bengaluru in April.