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'Don't know whom to mourn for'
Updated On: 25 May, 2010 08:25 AM IST | | Aditya Anand
Businessman who lost 25 people in the Mangalore crash, including relatives, friends and business associates as heartbroken when he surveyed the wreckage yesterday
Businessman who lost 25 people in the Mangalore crash, including relatives, friends and business associates as heartbroken when he surveyed the wreckage yesterday
Mohammed Naseer (45), a Dubai-based businessman of Indian origin, is a man in mourning. He lost not one but 25 people he knew well in the Mangalore air crash. The dead include relatives, friends and his business partner Iqbal Siddiqui.
Naseer, who visited the crash site in Mangalore after the area was opened to the public on Monday afternoon, said, "I don't know for whom to mourn.
All 25 bodies in the airplane were charred beyond recognition. We were certain only about Iqbal Siddiqui's identity. The Rolex watch he was wearing was intact."
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| Businessman Mohammed Naseer and his wife at the site of the Mangalore crash. |
It may sound simple but identifying the charred bodies with certainty was a daunting task. "Though the Rolex watch was intact, the arm was severed. Now we had the arm but no body.
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It took over 12 hours before we found a body without an arm. Since it matched, we discovered it was him," Naseer said.
Siddiqui was Naseer's business partner. "We have been through a lot of ups and downs together. We lost a lot of money in the Dubai real estate market," Naseer said. The partners had recently diversified and begun trading in textiles.
Naseer's family accompanied him to Mangalore from Kasargod in Kerala on hearing of the crash on Saturday.
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They were so moved on seeing the crash site that they not only took photographs of the aircraft remains but also attempted to carry some of the debris as mementos.
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They were, however, stopped by cops and reprimanded.
Of the 60-odd Malayalees who died in the crash, around 40 are from Naseer's home district Kasargod, where every panchayat has dozens of people living in the Gulf countries. While 30 funerals have been conducted so far, not all the bodies have been identified yet.
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| Mohammed Naseer lost his relatives, friends and business associates in the air crash. A view of an airplane flying above the site where the Air India plane crashed on Saturday. How do you like the new new mid-day.com experience? Share your feedback and help us improve. Read Next Story Trending StoriesLatest Photos |
