Bhograi: The bodies of two Odia youths who recently died in Japan due to asphyxiation were brought back home in Bhograi area of Balasore district Sunday.
Union Minister of State for Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Pratap Chandra Sarangi, had written to External Affairs Minister S Jaishankar and one of the secretaries of the same department, urging them to initiate measures so that the bodies could be brought back and handed over to their families.
According to reports, the bodies were brought from Japan by an Air India plane to Delhi airport Sunday and from there to Dum Dum Airport in Kolkata.
The families and relatives of the deceased reached Kolkata and brought the bodies in two ambulances home in the afternoon.
Sk Mumtaz, a resident Kasaba Kamarda village in Balasore district and Sk Baruddin, 46, a resident of Barchana area in Jajpur district, had been working as cooks at a hotel in Japan.
They died a few days ago due to asphyxiation at their workplace. However, the cost of transporting the bodies from Japan was estimated to be about Rs 15 lakh. The bereaved families had expressed their inability to afford the whopping cost.
Their families and some social activists urged Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik, Union Minister Sarangi and some MLAs to bring back the bodies.
Sarangi had a telephonic discussion in this regard with the Indian Embassy in Tokyo. He had requested the officials there to expedite the process of bringing the bodies back.
PNN
