Wife’s friends did not know she was on board MH17, says doctor
The Malaysian Insider – 49 minutes agoRELATED CONTENT
- Wife’s friends did not know she was on board MH17, says doctor
The days following the Malaysia Airlines flight MH17 tragedy were tough for the family of ophthalmologist Datuk Dr Vijendran Markandu whose wife, Datin Priya Vijendran, was among the passengers on board the Boeing 777 shot down over Ukraine, reported the Star .
However, many of the 69-year-old’s friends were initially unaware that she was one of the victims because the passenger manifest had listed her as Datin Kausalya Jairamdas, the report said.
Dr Vijendran, 72, told the paper that only her close friends were aware about it with many still in the dark about her death.
According to the report, Dr Vijendran saw his wife last on June 23 when he sent her to Kuala Lumpur Sentral for her to board the plane to Netherlands.
“I was shocked when I saw the news on TV. I knew she was on that flight as we had exchanged text messages,” he said in the report.
The Boeing 777 was en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam when it was shot down by what was believed to be a Russian-made SA-11 surface-to-air missile near the region of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine on July 17, killing all 298 people on board.
Those responsible for downing the plane have yet to be identified, with Russian and Ukrainian authorities blaming each other and pro-Russia separatists for the disaster.
The report said doting grandmother Priya was on the flight after spending nearly a month with her two grandchildren – seven-year-old Chiara and nine-year-old Leo, the children of their second son Sanjay – in Lieden, Amsterdam.
“She loved the grandchildren very much,” he told the Star during an interview. His three sons – Rajiv, Sanjay and Prem – were with him.
He told the Star the family was unable to have closure as they did not have Priya’s body.
“We will continue to carry out prayers,” he said, adding that a prayer session would be held at 5pm on Monday at the Lakshmi Narayan temple in Kg Kasipillay, Jalan Ipoh.
In the report, Dr Vijendran said his wife had been an active person, citing how she would help with a mobile library by sourcing for periodicals and magazines from newsstands and also taking them to be given to patients at the National Heart Institute. – July 26, 2014.
