Kochi, Jan 21: Eight tourists from Kerala were found dead in a resort at Daman in Makwanpur district of Nepal, reports said. The dead include a couple and four minor children.
The deceased were identified as Praveen Kumar Nair (39), Saranya (34), Ranjith Kumar T.B (39), Indu Ranjith (34), Sreebhadra (9), Abhinav Soorya (9), Abhi Nair (7) and Vaishnav Ranjith (2).
The deceased are from Chengottukonam in Thiruvananthapuram and Kundamangalam in Kozhikode. Praveen, a travel enthusiast hailing from Chengottukonam, went on the Nepal trip with his wife, three children and friends from Kochi, last week.
“They were using a gas heater in the room. Suffocation might have caused their death,” said superintendent of police Sushil Singh Rathore of the District Police Office in Makwanpur, news agencies reported.
According to newspaper reports here, the deaths occurred at a resort named Everest Panorama. They were airlifted to HAMS hospital where they were pronounced dead on arrival, superintendent of police Sushil Singh Rathaur said.
They were part of a group of 15 people travelling from Kerala to Pokhara, a popular mountain tourist destination, The Himalayan Times reported.
They were on their way back home and stayed at Everest Panorama resort in Daman in Makawanpur district on Monday night.
The tourists are suspected to have died of asphyxiation after turning on the gas heater and shutting all the windows to keep warm. Hotel staff opened the room using duplicate keys as there was no response from the rooms when the other members of the group went to check on them.
According to the manager of the resort, the guests stayed in a room and turned on a gas heater to keep themselves warm. Although they had booked a total of four suites, eight of them stayed in a room, the manager said, adding that all the windows and the door of the room were bolted from inside.
“All arrangements have been made to bring the bodies to Kerala at the earliest. The Union government is coordinating with the Indian Embassy in Nepal. A doctor from the Indian embassy will be present during the post mortem. Other members of the group are being brought to Kathmandu by road,” said Union minister V Muraleedharan.
Chief minister Pinarayi Vijayan said that NORKA will coordinate with Nepal authorities to bring dead bodies.
“Embassy officials are at the government hospital where a post mortem is being done. Formalities will be completed at the earliest and arrangements are in place to bring dead bodies by Wednesday evening. State government is in constant contact with Nepal authorities,” said Kadakampally Surendran, tourism minister.
After public outcry, health and family welfare minister UT Khader had urged the finance department on Tuesday for ICU tax exemption.
Comments
It is only in India and many under-developed nations that Health and Education is made costly. Health and Education in many developed countries is their Birth Right and hence they are available to them either free of cost or highly subsidized form. We pay taxes for every thing we buy and use but why can't Govt. afford to implement the scheme. In the present scenario only rich can have good health and education, others have to either do some diploma or look for job early. The Govt. College and Hospitals are pathetic to go. Can they develop such that they are in par with Private institutions? Or do politicians have stakes in private companies that they don't want to improve the services of Govt. run institutions?
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