Birthday trip to Nepal turns tragic for Kerala children

It was the birth month of three children, who were looking forward to the Nepal trip as a finale of the celebrations, but fate had something else in store.

The three children died along with their parents Praveen and Saranya and three others, part of a 15-member group of family friends from Kerala on Tuesday, possibly due to asphyxiation in their room at a mountainous resort in Nepal.

Sree Bhadra (9), Aarcha (7) and Abhinav (4) - the children of 39-year-old Dubai-based IT professional Praveen Krishnan Nair and his wife Saranya, had told their friends and teachers that they were going on a tour to celebrate their birthdays.

The shell-shocked teachers of a private school at Elamakkara in Kochi, where the Praveen's family was staying, said they were yet to come to terms with the reality that they would never see the little ones again. The teachers said the three kids were well-mannered and would joyfully complete tasks assigned to them. "It is a loss to us. Such wonderful children...," a teacher told media as she broke down.

The Kochi school will hold a remembrance for the children during the assembly on Thursday, she said. According to family members, all three children were born in the month of January. While Sree Bhadra was born on January 3, Abhinav on 15 and Aarcha on 31st of the same month, they said adding that the Nepal trip was planned also as a birthday gift for the little ones.

They were seen all happy and excited in the CCTV footage from the apartment in Kochi, which was recorded minutes before they left for the airport to catch a flight to New Delhi and then to Nepal. Besides Praveen and family, Kunnamangalam-based couple Ranjith Kumar TB (39) and Indu (34) and their son Vaishnav (2) had also lost their lives at the resort on Tuesday.

IT professionals Praveen and Ranjith along with two other friends and family members had gone to the Himalayan resort after a get together of Engineering college batchmates in Delhi. According to friends, Ranjith and wife Indu had embarked on the trip days after celebrating their wedding anniversary. Indu, who worked in a local cooperative bank in Kozhikode, had cut a cake at the office to celebrate the anniversary on the previous day of their Nepal trip.

The photos of the cake cutting event during the lunch break, in which Indu was all smiles, has now become a haunting memory for her colleagues. Ranjith's elder son, Madhav, a second-standard student, who was sleeping with another family in the neighbouring room, has been orphaned by the tragedy. Madhav is at Kathmandu with the friends of Praveen and Ranjith. "I will come soon," he told a relative who got in touch soon after hearing about the tragedy on Tuesday.

Praveen, who hails from Chempazhanthi, a town bordering Kollam, worked as an engineer in Dubai while his wife, Saranya, who was a second-year student of MPharm at the Amrita Pharmacy college at Kochi, was very "social and friendly". "All of us are shocked on hearing about her death," college sources told PTI.

The four friends had studied together at the Sree Chitra Tirunal College of Engineering at Pappanamcode from where they had graduated in 2004. Ranjith, who had worked at Thiruvananthapuram and at Infopark at Kochi, had a few months ago quit his job and started his own business at Kozhikode. Praveen's friends said two of their former batchmates have rushed to Kathmandu to accompany the mortal remains, which is expected to reach the state for the final rites on Thursday.

Union minister of state for External Affairs V Muraleedharan said post-mortem procedures of the 8 Keralites, has already begun and efforts are on to expedite the process. In a tweet, the minister said he had spoken to the Indian Embassy officials in Nepal.

"Spoke to Indian Embassy in Nepal. Post-mortem of the deceased 8 Indian tourists has already started. Our embassy is working closely with the T.U. Teaching hospital and local authorities to expedite the process," he said.