India returns the remains of 45 workers from Kuwait

Picture courtesy: (MEA) A special Indian Air Force aircraft is carrying the bodies of those who died in the fire in Kuwait building.

(The Post News)- The remains of 45 workers who were killed in a fire incident in Kuwait have returned to India by special Indian Air Force flight. The fire occurred on Wednesday, June 12, at a residential building in Mangaf city, where 176 Indian workers stayed.

Kuwaiti authorities announced that 50 people lost their lives in the fire, including 45 from India and three from the Philippines. However, the remains of two people have not yet been identified.

On Thursday, an Indian minister was in Kuwait to assist with the identification of victims and return them to the country.

Indian minister Kirti Vardhan Singh said that the DNA tests had been conducted to identify the victims.

The flight arrived in Kerala’s Kochi city on Friday morning, June 14, where the remains of workers from southern Indian states will be handed over to the authorities before proceeding to Delhi.

Two-thirds of Kuwait’s population is made up of foreign workers, and the country is mostly dependent on migrant labour, including in the construction and domestic sectors.

However, human rights groups have frequently raised concerns about the workers’ living conditions. It was also noted that most of the workers were from India and were injured in the fire.

Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan and other state lawmakers were at the airport to pay their respects to the bodies.

The state government had arranged ambulances to transport the remains of the workers back to their homes for last rites.

Vijayan argues that the incident was a huge tragedy for the country. Kerala’s migrant workers are the lifeblood of their state. The fire in Kuwait was one of the tragedies that affected their community.

The state and federal governments stated that the families of those who died in the fire would be compensated.

The authorities in Kuwait announced that they will be carrying out an inspection of the health and safety conditions around the buildings, including the houses, for foreign workers in the country.

According to the Arab Times, the authorities, after an investigation, found that the fire was caused by an electrical short circuit in the security guard’s room, which is located on the ground floor of the six-story building.

A senior Kuwait Fire Department official said on Wednesday, June 12, that inflammable material was used as partitions between rooms, including the apartments in the building.

Kuwait’s Public Prosecution Department has arrested the citizen and some expatriates based on charges of manslaughter and negligence for not following the fire safety measures.

Sheikh Fahad Yusuf al-Sabah, the country’s deputy prime minister, accused the property owners of greed and argued that
The building standards had led to the tragedy.