Mangalore, February 11: Members of Pravasi Sangham, an organisation for overseas affairs and returnees based in Kerala, have decided to hold a day-long hunger strike against the discrepancies in disbursing compensation to kin of Mangalore air crash victims.
The protest will be held on February 15 from 10 am to 4 pm in front of Air India Office in the city, announced P K Abdullah, Vice President of the organization at a press meet here on Saturday.
The hunger strike will be given a start by E P Jayarajan, MLA (CPI (M) central committee member). K V Abdul Khader, MLA, general secretary, Kerala Pravasi Sangham Central Committee, K Kunhiraman, MLA, among others will take part. As many as 200 volunteers go on fast, he said.
Recalling the worst ever aviation disaster of the Mangalore, he said that one and a half year old plane crash that resulted in death of 158 innocent passengers, led thousand of their dependents as helpless denizens and the relief of benefit that the dependents had to get lawfully from the insurance authorities of Air India has not yet assessed properly as per the relevant provisions of Insurance Act.
“There are umpteen such examples which would prove the discrimination of authorities against the victims and their dependents in the aforesaid plane crash”, he said.
Reiterating demand for equal compensation for the kin of all the victims as per the Montreal Convention, he said in the plane crash at Lebanon 103 victims were compensated by the authorities by paying a fair amount of Rs 1, 269 crore rupees.
He said though it was already declared by the law that every heir of the plain crash victims should get a minimum of Rs 75 lakh compensation, the Central Government and Air India are bargaining with hapless dependents to reduce compensation amount and harassing them.
Mr. Abdulla also complained that Air India and Reliance Insurance Company are troubling all dependents even after so many months.
District treasurer Basheer Kallingal, Joint Secretary KV Ganesh, M. Haneef and VV Krishnan, Abdul Khader were present at the press meet.
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