Headlines
Funds raised to send Indian's body back from New Zealand
Wellington, April 8
The body of an Indian
student who died here last week after being pulled out from the sea,
will, after all, be sent back to India with public donations worth
N$23,000 (nearly $17,500) having been raised, the Dominion Post reported
on Wednesday.
Boobesh Palani, 26, was pulled out from the waters
off the suburb of Easterbourne, near the Wellington harbour when his
cries were heard from about 50 metres off the coast on March 30.
He
was taken to the Hutt Hospital and then transferred to Wellington the
next day. It took three days to identify him and his family in India was
subsequently contacted. Palani died on April 3.
However,
Palani's body got stuck in New Zealand as his family could not afford
the NZ$15,000 needed for funeral and transportation costs, the Dominion
Post reported on Tuesday.
Friends and members of the Indian
community in Wellington heard of the sad plight of Palani's family and
decided set up a fund to help.
Three people of Indian origin --
Senthil Kumaran Kathiresan, Rama Ramanathan and Moorthy Sukari -- raised
NZ$3,800 towards the costs by Monday, but were still well short of
their NZ$25,000 target.
But after news of their appeal was published in the media, about NZ$20,000 was raised overnight.
Ramanathan
said on Wednesday that the fund had reached NZ$23,000 and enough money
was pledged to make them confident of sending Palani's body home at the
earliest opportunity.
"It was amazing. I couldn't believe it," Ramanathan said.
"It's
a tremendous response. We didn't think we would raise it all this fast.
We were thinking we would have to do a sausage sizzle on a couple of
weekends or something," he added.
Kathiresan, who was a good friend of Palani, said he could not thank people enough for donating.
He
described Palani as a quiet, soft-spoken man who loved cricket. He said
the family would do anything to have their boy's body back, but that
would probably mean going into debt.
The Indian high commission
in Wellington said on Tuesday that it was taking all steps to return
Palani's body to India, but certain documents were still needed. Once it
had them, it would also offer financial assistance to the family.