The bodies of seven Janata Dal – Secular (JD-S) activists, who were killed in the Colombo blasts on Sunday, arrived in Bengaluru yesterday, an official said.
The bodies of K G Hanumantharayappa, K M Lakshminarayana, M Rangappa, H Shivakumar, A Maregowda, H Puttaraju and L G Ramesh “were flown from Colombo on separate flights of SriLankan Airlines in coffins and taken to their homes to allow the public to pay homage before the last rites,” Vijay Mahantesh said in a statement.
They had gone to Sri Lanka on a holiday on April 20 after campaigning in the second phase of polling in the Lok Sabha elections on April 18 in the state’s southern region, including Bengaluru.
All of them hailed from Nelamangala in Tumkur district, about 50km northeast of Bengaluru.
“The JD-S activists were staying in Shangri-La star hotel where one of the serial bomb blasts went off, ripping through the restaurant when they were having breakfast,” a party official told IANS earlier.
Three others from Bengaluru also died in the blast. They were S R Nagaraj Reddy, Narayan Chandrashekhar and Remurai Tulasiram.
“Reddy’s body arrived here on Tuesday night, while the bodies of other two are yet to be flown from Colombo, pending formalities,” added Mahantesh.
JD-S chief H D Deve Gowda and his third son and state Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy paid floral tributes to the activists and consoled their bereaved families at their respective homes.
Puttaraju’s sibling Rudresh told IANS on Monday that his elder brother had called him on Sunday morning and said he landed in Colombo along with six others safely and were in a hotel.
“There was no call again from him after the blasts. None of the family members of the other six activists also got call from any of them after the blasts,” Rudresh added.
Meanwhile, after the attacks in Sri Lanka, Goa police have started special beach patrols, an official said.
“The South Goa district police have stared special motorcycle patrols in all our beach areas to ward off any potential threats in view of the terror attacks in Sri Lanka,” South Goa Superintendent of Police Arvind Gawas told reporters.
The patrol would be replicated in the North Goa district too, Gawas said. Goa is one of the top tourism destinations in the country and its beaches attracted more than 7mn tourists last year.
Police have already started patrolling around Goa’s popular churches following the Easter Sunday attack in Sri Lanka.