Four from Karnataka feared dead in Kenya air crash

Four persons were Karnataka are reported to have been on the ill-fated Kenyan Airways flight that had crashed on Saturday minutes after it took off from Cameroon.

Madhusudan, 42, a chartered accountant with a pharmaceutical company based in Cameroon, his wife Bhagya, 34, and their ten-year-old daughter, were to take a connecting flight from Nairobi to Mumbai before the Kenyan Airways flight taking them to Nairobi had crashed.

Similiarly, Ruby Paul, 32, a native of Mangalore in Karnataka, who had been to Cameroon on a two-month official assignment as part of her job with a multinational company at Chennai, too had taken the ill-fated flight.

The names of the four persons from Karnataka figured among the fifteen Indians, whose names had been released by the External Affairs Ministry.

Madhusudan’s mother Shanta Satyanarayana was spending anxious moments at his residence in J P Nagar seventh phase in Bangalore. Though shattered by the news, Shanta Satyanarayana has been glued to the television set in hope that some good news will emanate.

Madhusudan’s brother Murali told reporters that his brother, who had been in Cameroon for the last two years, was coming for a vacation with his family. “He wanted to leave his wife and daughter behind. Bhagya did not want to return and was planning to settle down in Bangalore with Poojitha”, he said.

Meanwhile, Ruby Paul’s brother Roy Paul said her company had sent Ruby to Cameroon on an official assignment. “She had finished her two-month stay and was returning”, Roy Paul told reporters.