New Delhi, April 18
The family of Joginder Pal, whose body has been lying unattended in a hospital in Damascus for over three weeks, finally completed the formalities required to facilitate the return of his body to India. They had earlier expressed their inability to pay up for the return, when the Indian embassy in Syria informed them of the demise of their relative.
For now, the dust on the issue seems to have settled, with the Ministry of External Affairs sanctioning the required $ 2,500 to fly Joginder’s body back home. Hoshiarpur SSP also confirmed to The Tribune today that he had received a communication from the government and had accordingly followed up with the Indian embassy in Syria. We have sent a fax saying the family is willing to receive the body, now that the government is willing to foot the cost, he said.
But here in the capital, some people know exactly why things go so very wrong at times. For a while now, Hoshiarpur MP Avinash Rai Khanna has been repeatedly talking in the Lok Sabha about the need to have dedicated cells in the states and the capital for the immigrants and their families.
Whereas the government has been signing MoUs with Gulf countries to improve working conditions for the Indian immigrants abroad, it is yet to pay attention to set up separate cells in the states like Punjab, which send hundreds of people abroad every year.
Incidentally, Khanna has in the past secured the return of bodies of two Punjabi who died abroad. One of them was a 17-year-old from village Parowal in Garhshankar; the other was an old man from Chabbewal village near Hoshiarpur - Khanna’s Lok Sabha constituency. He will again raise the matter in Parliament.
“I also assure the family of all the help they need for transporting the body back to Bajrawar village in Hoshiarpur,” Khanna today told The Tribune. Joginder’s nephew Paramjit said his father Tarsem was likely to arrive in New Delhi on Monday.
