Neighbour gives funeral land for Air India Express crash victim

While there is a general perception that all NRIs are having well to do background, a victim of the Air India Express flight crash in Kozhikode did not have inadequate land for the funeral.

Janaky Kunnoth, 55, of Kottoor, about 35 kilometers from Kozhikode, was one among the 18 persons killed in the flight crash on Friday. She was eking out a living for herself and her family by working as a maid for a Malayali family in UAE for nearly two years.

Owing to the financial crisis due to Covid-19, her employer was forced to terminate her job and Janaky was returning home in uncertainty when the flight crash took her life.

With her house situated in hardly four cents land, she got from government's aid for Dalit families, it was difficult to conduct the funeral even as her children wished that their mother's funeral be conducted near the house itself. Subsequently her neighbour Sobhana offered that the funeral may be performed at her land.

Kottur grama panchayat president Sheeja M P said that Janaky had been struggling to take care of her family by doing all sorts of casual jobs like housemaid and road works. She was a well-accepted lady of the locality and hence her neighbour had no concerns in allowing funeral at her land. Her husband left her and she brought up of her son and daughter.

Like Janaky, around 50 persons in the AIE flight were either returning owing to job loss or expiry of the visa.