New Delhi: President Pranab Mukherjee Saturday conveyed grief and sympathy over the Malaysia Airlines flight crash in eastern Ukraine in which an 298 people have reportedly died including one Indian-origin Flight Crew.
In a message to the King of Malaysia, the President said: “On behalf of the government, people of India and on my own behalf, I wish to convey my sincere grief and sympathy to the government and people of Malaysia over the Malaysia Airlines flight crash in eastern Ukraine, leading to the loss of so many precious lives.”
Mukherjee added: “Our thoughts and prayers are with the families of the nationals of Malaysia and other countries who lost their lives in this tragic incident.”
Yesterday, Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote to his Dutch counterpart Mark Rutte expressing his condolences on the loss of lives in crash of Malaysian Airlines Flight MH17 and hoping that circumstances of the disaster will quickly be established, a statement said Friday.
The Boeing 777, en route to Kuala Lumpur from Amsterdam, crashed Thursday afternoon in the conflict-hit Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine killing all 298 passengers and crew on board.
According to a release from the prime minister’s office, Modi wrote that the people of India share the sorrow and stand in mourning with the bereaved families and the Dutch people. “The Prime Minister wrote that he hopes the circumstances of the disaster are established quickly and that such tragedies are prevented,” the release said.
According to a list given by Malaysian Transport Minister Liow Tiong La, there were 173 Dutch passengers on board the doomed aircraft. Among the others were 44 Malaysians, 27 Australians, 12 Indonesians, nine Britons, four Germans, four Belgians, three Filipinos, one Canadian, and one New Zealander, while the the nationality of four more was yet to be identified.
There was one Indian-origin flight steward Sanjid Singh Sandu, 41, among the 15 Malaysian crew members. Sandu’s parents received the news from their daughter-in-law, who is also a flight stewardess with Malaysia Airlines, at 4 a.m. Friday.
His distraught father Jijar Singh told a TV channel that “recently he swapped with a colleague for the return Amsterdam-Kuala Lumpur flightâ€.