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Hema died of smoke inhalation, says consul-general |
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Sunday, 30 November 2008 08:09am |
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The curse of Taj Mahal Hotel's sixth floor
©The
Sunday Star (Used by permission)
Nelson Benjamin Reports from Mumbai
MUMBAI: Missing Malaysian Hema Kasipillay is confirmed dead
and her partially charred remains were found in her room on level six of the Taj
Mahal Palace and Tower Hotel here at about midnight Malaysian time.
Malaysian Consul-general to India, Wan Zaidi Wan Abdullah, said Hema’s remains
were identified by her husband K. Sivakumaran, at one of the hospitals here.
“The postmortem done on her revealed that she had died of smoke inhalation,”
said Wan Zaidi, who is helping Hema’s husband to fly her remains to Kuala Lumpur
today.
Hema had been missing since terrorists stormed the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower
Hotel here on Wednesday night.
Earlier yesterday, Sivakumaran who has been visiting several hospitals looking
for Hema, told The Star that he had yet to tell his son and daughter, aged 19
and 18, about their missing mother.
“How am I going to tell my two children who are studying medicine in Russia that
their mother has been missing following the terrorist attack.
“Since coming here late Friday, I, together with the consular-general and some
friends, have been going to the hospitals checking to see if anyone has seen
her,” he said.
The general manager of a security company in Kuala Lumpur said that he had gone
to the hotel and through the consular-general appealed to the security force to
check his wife’s room at 637.
He was told that the army was combing the hotel floor by floor.
The Taj Mahal Palace has 565 rooms and 25 floors and is adjacent to the Gateway
of India monument.
Sivakumar said that his wife was supposed to attend a conference between Nov 25
and Dec 5.
“The last time I spoke to her was prior to her leaving for India. Then I get a
call from family members on Nov 27 that such a thing had taken place,” he said
with tears in his eyes.
“I’m also touched by my wife’s colleagues here who have also been going round
with her photographs to the hospitals to look for her,” he said, adding that her
company arranged for his stay and travel to look for his wife.
Wan Zaidi added that all the other 150 Malaysians in the city were accounted
for.
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My heart goes out to the families of close to 200 victims who have died in vain.
It could have been anyone.....businessmen, holidaymakers, hotel workers, bystanders, Hindus, Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Jews....and my heart sank on hearing the rescued Jewish child had lost his parents on his 2nd birthday.
What is startling is that how have the terorists, who seem to be barely out of their teens, have been brain-washed and indoctrinated to give their life away in such a manner.
If they think they are Jihadis, i think they are misguided. Taking a life of another, in such a cowardice manner is far, far away from being any close to a Jihad. If it was at the battlefield to safeguard their country or religion then it is different altogether. For nowhere in Islam it teaches about the killing innocent people to advance a cause.
From the initial findings it is reported the perpertrators are Kashmiris. It is their nationalistic cause which has been going on since the independence of India. They just happened to be Muslims. It is the legacy of their colonial masters. The same fingerprints are seen in the middle-east, after the dismantling of the Ottomon Empire.
Whatever their struggle may be, kiling of innocent civillian victims is clearly an unislamic despicable act which would dilute whatever sympathy that the world might have had for the Kashmiris.
Acts of this nature would not attract support, worst than that retaliation....and in a country like India, this would go on forever.
Abdul Fareed Bin Abdul Gafoor