E-Paper
Canada accident deaths: Bodies of 5 Indian students to be repatriated tomorrow
Four of the students were from Punjab, while Pawan Kumar was from Haryana. The process of transporting the remains is being facilitated by India’s consulate in Toronto.
The bodies of the five students who died in a tragic accident in Ontario, Canada on March 12, will be transported back to India on Monday.
Harpreet Singh, 24, Jaspinder Singh, 21, Karanpal Singh, 22, Mohit Chouhan, 23, and Pawan Kumar, 23 were killed when the passenger van they were travelling in was involved in a collision with a tractor-trailer on Highway 401 in the province of Ontario.
The bodies are expected to arrive in New Delhi on Tuesday. Four of the students were from Punjab, while Pawan Kumar was from Haryana.
The process of transporting the remains is being facilitated by India’s consulate in Toronto.
A ceremony for them was held at the Brampton Crematorium and Visitation Center in the town of Brampton in the Greater Toronto Area (GTA) on Friday evening. The co-owner and principal of the funeral home Inderjit Singh Bal said that was organised “because the community wanted to bid them farewell and pay them tribute”.
Bal said several students, numbering a couple of hundred, came for the visitation.
The bodies will remain at the crematorium till they are placed on board the flight to India.
Among those paying their respects was India’s consul general in Toronto Apoorva Srivastava. Also present was Don Patel, president of Humans for Harmony, an organisation which assists international students and newcomers in unfortunate situations. Representatives of the Peel Regional Police were also there to pay their respects.
Two other students, one female and one male, who were injured in the accident are out of danger, while another was uninjured. All three are from Punjab but have not been identified for reasons of privacy. The driver, also the only occupant of the tractor-trailer, was uninjured.
Three of the dead students and one of the survivors studied at the Canada College in Montreal and that institution is bearing the costs of transportation of their remains, while a fourth was insured and the Indian government is bearing the cost for the fifth.
