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Journalism of Courage
“Not knowing (what happened) is very painful,” says Shirsat. “I meet people, and when they find out that my wife was on board on that flight, they ask me what had happened. But unfortunately I have no answers,” he said.
His wife, Kranti Shirsat, was one of the 239 people aboard the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370 that mysteriously disappeared in March 2014. Shirsat said, “For the next three years nearly, I was hoping there will be something positive. I think within the first month itself the authorities had declared that everyone on board was presumed dead. Hopes were limited after that, most of the hope came from conspiracy theories.”
Now, almost 11 years have passed, and the family is in a better place. Shirsat’s elder son recently completed a MBA from Canada and the younger son is pursuing Chartered Accountancy. He says, “I would definitely say we have moved on. We have accepted the situation. Acceptance is the best thing.”
Taking off from Kuala Lumpur to Beijing on March 8, 2014, MH370 had taken a southwest turn before losing all contact. A long time social worker, Shirsat was at the time based in North Korea working with Irish NGO Concern Worldwide. Kranti was to fly from Beijing to Pyongyang. “I was getting ready to pick her up from the airport when I saw news on the TV that a plane had disappeared. I checked the flight number and it matched,” said Shirshat.
Within a few hours, he left by road to China with support from the Chinese and the North Korean authorities. Even after Shirsat spent a week in Beijing and Kuala Lumpur, no news on the plane came, and he finally returned to India to be with his sons.
For the next three-four years Shirshat followed the news about the search meticulously. He was in touch with the families of other passengers on the plane, which included five Indians, and took part in annual functions organised by them in Malaysia. However, he says there never was any substantial update.
In 2014 itself, the governments of Malaysia, Australia and China had launched a joint search operation spread over a 120,000 sq km area in the southern Indian Ocean to find the missing aircraft. This search was called off three years later in 2017 without success, another search by US exploration firm Ocean Infinity in 2018 also proved to be unfruitful. Around the same time, Shirsat stopped receiving updates from the Malaysian government.
In December 2024, the Malaysian Government agreed in principle to resume search operations for the Malaysian Airlines flight MH370. This announcement was based on a proposal by US exploration firm Ocean Infinity, which would receive $70 million if substantive wreckage is found.
However, Shirsat says that this announcement should not be taken at face value. “These news reports keep coming but unless and until something happens on the ground, this can’t be trusted. And personally I have lost trust in the Malaysian government,” he says.
The plane took off at midnight and took a U-turn soon after, But the government only found out about it in the morning, alleges Shirsat. “A lot of information was held back. It was not systematic. We have systems in every country, to detect even missiles coming towards the country. We detect them, isn’t it? A plane passed through the airspace of many countries and nobody knows?”
Did he have any expectations from the Indian government? “The only expectation was that the Indian government would put pressure on the Malaysian government. Five Indian nationals were there. They might have put some pressure, but it was not substantial. That was the one expectation I had and it was not met,” said Shirsat.
With pain in his voice, he expressed what only few people can truly understand, “People come and sit with you and talk to you. But after we’re done, the topic is finished for those people. But I carry it, I live it. And you cannot explain it in words.”
