Deccan Herald
Bangalore, April 2: A couple killed in the boat capsize during a dinner cruise off the coast of Bahrain on Friday, hailed from Shivajinagar in Bangalore.
A couple killed in the boat capsize during a dinner cruise off the coast of Bahrain on Friday, hailed from Shivajinagar in Bangalore.
While the body of the husband, Sayeed Farooq Sayeed Ahmed (40), has been recovered, the body of the wife, Rabiya Farooq (35), is yet to be recovered.
The couple had lived in Mumbai before shifting to West Asia.
Farooq, based in Dubai for nearly two decades, was on a business trip to Bahrain. Wife Rabiya had accompanied him on the trip.
Their children are, however, safe as they were not accompanying the couple on the ill-fated vessel.
Both were among the 67 people killed in the Friday tragedy. Ahmed was working with a civil construction company.
According to family sources in Bangalore, Feroze’s body is likely to arrive in Bangalore on Sunday.
Feroze’s mother is a heart patient and is unaware the tragedy.
Brother Jawed and brother-in-law Mohammad Mansoor, currently in Bahrain, were arranging for bringing back the bodies for cremation in Bangalore.
When contacted by Deccan Herald, Jawed hoped to get necessary clearance for flying the bodies to Bangalore either on Monday or Tuesday. “At present we are awaiting clearance from the Bahrain Health Ministry authorities,” he said.
“Once the certificate of death is issued, we also need to get the clearance from authorities in Dubai, where the two are registered as foreign workers,” Jawed said about the legal procedures needed to be completed in the two countries before the bodies were flown to Bangalore.
Jawed attributed the tragedy to “gross negligence of mandatory safety requirements. “Safety requirements were totally neglected. Where the capacity of the boat was just about 80 persons, there were on board over 160 people. It was overloaded. The captain of the shift is not even qualified one. Weather conditions made matters worse,” he said.
Captain Indian?
Apparently, the captain is an Indian. However, when contacted by Deccan Herald, Indian Ambassador in Bahrain Balakrishna Shetty could not confirm this. He though confirmed that the death of two the Bangalore couple.
Jawed claimed that many on board had complained about overloading even before the boat sailed for the dinner cruise.
Meanwhile, the number of Indians who died in the boat tragedy has risen to 21, which includes five women.