Mumbai: Mumbai airport descended into gloom after the dead bodies of four Maharashtra tourists were received by their relatives on Wednesday.
The victims have been identified as Dilip Desle (Panvel) and Sanjay Lele, Hemant Joshi, and Atul Mone (Dombivli).
The relatives of these victims were in a state of shock, there was palpable anger, and they were in tears.
One of the relatives of Desle was insisting that she wanted to see the face of Dilip Desle, but the authorities politely turned her request down.
Another young relative, though, crying relentlessly, expressed his condolences and raised the ‘Bharat Mata Ki Jay’ slogan.
“As a nation, we stand together to strongly condemn the cowardly attack and ultimately remain united to make the more stronger. The perpetrators should not go unpunished,” said the relative.
The relatives and those present at the airport also observed a two-minute silence.
A relative of Hemant Joshi claimed that it was a horror what they witnessed on April 22.
Maharashtra ministers Ashish Shelar, Mangalprabhat Lodha, and Gulabrao Patil, including BJP executive president and Dombivli legislator Ravindra Chavan and BJP legislator from Panvel Prashant Thakur, were present on the occasion.
Ravindra Chavan accompanied the relatives of the victims from Dombivli, while Prashant Thakur went with the relatives of Desle.
Meanwhile, the Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis has announced a financial assistance of Rs 5 lakh to the families who lost their loved ones during the cowardly terrorist attack at Pahalgam and Rs 50,000 to the injured.
In the wake of the terrorist attack on tourists in Pahalgam, the state government has appointed two officers to assist the affected citizens at the State Emergency Operations Centre.
Manager of the State Emergency Operations Centre, Visheshkar Suryavanshi, and Control Room Officer, Nitin Masale, have been appointed at the Ministry Control Room.
At least 26 tourists and local civilians were killed on Tuesday after gunmen opened fire on innocent civilians in Baisaran in Jammu and Kashmir.
According to eyewitness accounts, a group of heavily armed terrorists emerged from the nearby forests and opened indiscriminate fire on civilians, most of whom were tourists.
Baisran is a small meadow three to four km from the Pahalgam market, and tourists take horses to reach the place as there is no motorable road to it.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi arrived in New Delhi on Wednesday morning after cutting his Saudi Arabia trip short due to the terror attack.
He had a brief meeting with NSA Ajit Doval, External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar, and Foreign Secretary Vikram Misri at the airport. PM Modi strongly condemned the terror attack on Tuesday, stating that the guilty will be brought to justice and reaffirming India’s “unshakable” resolve to fight terrorism.
(IANS)
