Nepal bus accident: Air Force plane brings back 25 bodies

Minister of state for Youth Affairs and Sports, Raksha Nikhil Khadse, was present at Bharatpur airport, some 150-km away from Kathmandu, to receive the bodies.

Bhesh Bahadur Rijal, police officer on duty, said the postmortem of all the 27 victims was conducted at Bharatpur government Hospital by noon Saturday. While 26 people had been declared ‘brought dead’ by Abukhareni Hospital, one person was sent to Chitwan Hospital, some 40-KM away, in a critical condition.

The minister visited the Tribhuvan University Teaching Hospital where 16 people are undergoing treatment and wished them a speedy recovery.

As many as 27 pilgrims from Maharashtra were killed and more than a dozen injured when the bus in which they were travelling skidded off the road and fell 250 metres into the swollen Marsyangdi River in Tanahun district of Nepal, around 115 km from Kathmandu, on Friday.

The bus, bearing an UP registration number, was heading towards Kathmandu from the resort town of Pokhara, carrying 43 people, including the driver. The passengers were from Bhusawal Tehsil of Maharashtra’s Jalgaon district.  They were among 80 people from four villages — Varangaon, Talvel, Aachegaon and Pimpalgaon — who had left on a pilgrimage to Ayodhya, Prayagraj and Nepal on August 16 and were scheduled to return on August 28.

As the news about the death of 25 people from their villages broke out, the shops remained shut and streets were  deserted on Saturday in Varangaon and neighbouring villages to pay homage to the members of their villages.

Among the dead were two former corporators of Varangaon — Sudhakar Gawade and his wife Rohini — and five of their relatives.

Sudhakar’s son Shubham who was in tears since he got to know about the tragic incident.

Shubham said that he had spoken to his father on Thursday when he reached Pokhara and his father had told him that he would go to Kathmandu on Friday morning for darshan of Pashupatinath. Shubham said he could not talk to mother as she was away and there was a network network.

Shubham said that all of them reached Nepal two days ago after visiting Ayodhya, Banaras and Prayagraj.  “After reaching the hotel in Pokhara he said that he would go for darshan of Pashupatinath on Friday morning. We were going to call him, but before that we got information that the bus had met with an accident,” Shubham said.

Meanwhile Prime Minister Narendra Modi Saturday announced an ex-gratia of Rs 2 lakh from PMNRF for the next of kin of each deceased. The injured would be given Rs 50,000.