Mangalore Air Crash Compensation: Kerala-based Org Demands Justice
 
Pics: Spoorthi Ullal
Daijiworld Media Network – Mangalore (PS)
 
Mangalore, Feb 15: Urging minimum and equal share of compensation amount of Rs 75 lac to the kin of Mangalore Air crash victims, members of Pravasi Sangam, an organisation for overseas affairs and returnees based in Kerala, observed a fast in protest in front of the Mangalore Air India Office on Wednesday February 15 from 10 am to 4 pm.
 
K V Abdul Khader, MLA, Guruvayoor, K Kunhiraman, MLA, Uduma, B Madhava of CPI(M), E P Jayarajan, MLA, P K Abdulla, central vice president of Pravasi Sangham, Basheer Kallingal and about 100 relatives of air crash victims were part of this protest.

Abdul Khader said that Air India was deliberately delaying the process of disbursing compensation so as to buy time and wriggle out of its responsibility towards the victims' kin.  He alleged that Air India and the insurance company under it had failed to empathise with the families and that they had failed to properly assess the amount of compensation as per the provisions of insurance act.

DYFI district president Muneer Katipalla said that Air India was not following the Montreal agreement that required it to pay a compensation of Rs 75 lac to the victim's kin. Air India even challenged the order of the divisional court which had favoured the families, he said, pointing out that it was nothing delay tactics. He also decried the government and Air India's attempts at bargaining with the victims' kin.

MLA K Kunhiraman alleged that Air India had been biased in disbursing the compensation amount, and cited the example of a Lebanon air crash where in all the victims' kin were compensated equally.