It was only last week that 27-year-old Sreehari Pradeep started his first job, at the company where his father has been working for a decade.
On Wednesday, the mechanical engineer from Kerala was among the 49 people who died when a fire broke out at an apartment building in Kuwait’s Mangaf area. The building was where the NBTC group, the company Sreehari joined days ago, housed several of its employees.
Around 45 of the 49 people who died in the fire were Indians, and at least 23 of them were from Kerala, according to the state government.
Like Sreehari, 44-year-old Binoy Joseph and 29-year-old Sajan George – both from Kerala – had also not been in Kuwait for long. Binoy had moved to the country just five days ago to work for the NBTC group. Sajan, who had joined the company in April, had sent his first salary home only last week. Nithin Kuthoor, 26, had been working in Kuwait for five years, but only moved to the apartment building in Mangaf just last week. The three of them were also among the victims of Wednesday’s fire.
Sreehari’s father, Pradeep, lived three buildings away from where the fire took place, and on Thursday morning, he identified his son at a hospital mortuary.
Throughout Wednesday, his family back home in Ithithanam, in Kerala’s Kottayam district, had been praying that Sreehari would be found alive.
Shailaja Soman, the family’s neighbour in Ithithanam, said: “On Wednesday, when the incident happened, Pradeep rushed to the apartment where his son was staying. Due to the fire and warnings from security personnel, he could not go inside.”
Then, somebody told Pradeep that Sreehari was injured and was taken to hospital.
“Throughout Wednesday, Pradeep ran from one hospital to another in search of his son. Eventually, a staff member at a hospital asked for Sreehari’s identification marks – he had tattoos on both wrists. Subsequently, the staff member took Pradeep to the morgue, where he identified his son’s body,” Shailaja said.
According to the neighbour, Sreehari had not suffered burns, but died of suffocation caused by smoke.
Pradeep has worked for NBTC for around a decade. His wife, Deepa, is a homemaker. Apart from Sreehari, the couple has two other sons – Arjun, who works in the hospitality sector, and Anand, who works in retail.
Binoy Joseph, who also died in the fire, leaves behind wife, Bineetha, and two daughters – the youngest of whom is in class 1 – back home in Palayoor, near Chavakkad in Thrissur district.
He had been working as a salesman at a shop in Chavakkad before going to Kuwait with dreams of earning enough money to build a house for his family.
The family’s neighbour Supriya Ramachandran said: “They don’t have a house of their own. Last year, Binoy purchased a small plot of land to build a house. Now, they have erected a small shed on that land. He went to Kuwait at the age of 44 just so that he can repay the liability incurred in purchasing the land and to find enough money to start constructing a house.”
The father of Sajan George, who also died in the fire, lamented that it was he who had urged Sajan to go to Kuwait. Sajan, who has a postgraduate degree in engineering, was an assistant professor at a private engineering college in Adoor, in Pathanamthitta district, before moving to Kuwait on April 27 to work as a junior mechanical engineer with NBTC.
A native Punalur in Kollam district, Sajan was not keen on going to Kuwait, his family said. “On June 5, he sent me his first salary,” said George Pothen, his father.
Also among the dead was Nithin Kuthoor from Vayakkara in Kannur district. He had been working as a driver for the NBTC group for the last five years. The company had put him up in other accommodations earlier and was moved to the apartment where the fire took place just a week ago.
“Over a year ago, Nithin had come (to Kerala) on leave. He has a small plot of land, and when he came on leave, he had constructed the base for a house there. A bachelor, his dream was to make enough money to build a house and then return,” his friend Pramod C P said.
Nithin’s father Lakshman and elder brother Lijin work as drivers in Kannur.
Sreehari Pradeep, 27, was from Kerala’s Kottayam 
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