Twenty-one-year-old Lakshmi Gayatri Appanabhotla and 20-year-old
Akula Vijetha, whose bodies, along with those of two others, arrived
here from Himachal Pradesh on Monday night, were very close friends and
both left the world as if they would not be able to live without one
another. They met at VNR Vignan Jyothi Institute of Engineering
and Technology at Bachupally here for the first time during admissions
to B.Tech and hit it off instantly. At daybreak on Tuesday,
grief-stricken friends and acquaintances arrived at the residence of
Lakshmi Gayatri at Gayatri Residency in Eenadu Colony in Kukatpally.
About 8.30 am a group of students of her college descended on the house
to have a last glimpse of her. They chose Electrical
Instrumentation as their subject of study and became benchmates too.
They were part of the group that went to Himachal Pradesh on an
industrial tour. “They had a great time visiting the Taj Mahal,
Kullu Manali and Mandi along with their classmates without an inkling of
the impending danger. Death, in the form of a huge mass of water,
gobbled them,” said a senior student. As the day progressed,
parents had to do the inevitable: performing the last rites. The four
bodies were cremated at different places as parents and friends bid a
tearful farewell. The body of the fourth victim, Rambabu Naik, was sent
to his village in Nalgonda district where the funeral was conducted by
his parents. “We were all together. We never had the feeling that
one was a junior and the other was a senior. Lakshmi used to visit my
classroom if she had any doubts and used to collect books from us.
Lakshmi and Vijetha were good friends. They used to make rounds to the
canteen, library together. They went to tour and their bodies with
enthusiasm but they did not return home, only their bodies did,”
regretted Lakshmi’s senior Sravani. Appanabhotla Suryanarayana,
who visited the accident site at Beas river in Mandi and received the
body of his daughter Lakshmi, vented his anger on the irrigation staff
who lifted the gates of Larji dam without any warning. “Students were
sitting on 10-foot-high rocks downstream the dam. When I visited the
spot after the mishap had taken place, I made some enquiries. The
survivors said that they had heard water gushing but they thought it was
a rain pouring down from the sky,” Suryanarayana recalled.
The
atmosphere at Akula Vijetha’s residence was no different. Hundreds of
friends and relatives gathered at her relative’s house in Madhuranagar.
She wanted to be a businesswoman like her father Surya Kumar. They
used to discuss his business. Her family members received the body at
the Begumpet airport, shifted it to her relative’s house in Madhuranagar
and performed the final rites. At Aishwarya’s house, it was tough
to control her grief-stricken parents GV Durga Dass and Sudharani.
Hundreds of locals, friends, and family members made a beeline for her
house.
YSRC Team in Manali: A team of YSRC MPs which were in
Kulu Manali demanded payment of `20 lakh as ex gratia to the kin of
students washed away in the Beas river on Sunday. The YSRC team was in
Manali to extend help to the parents and relative of students. The team
comprised YV Subba Reddy, Mithun Reddy and P Srinivasa Reddy. The team
felt that more number of rescue teams should be pressed into service to
look for survivors. They expressed dissatisfaction over the pace of
rescue operations and wanted the Himachal government to intensify the
rescue operations further.
JNTU-H Plans to Ban Excursions: In
the wake of the Himachal Pradesh tragedy, Jawaharlal Nehru
Technological University plans to issue a notification to the affiliated
colleges cancelling student excursions in the name of industrial tours,
particularly to dangerous locations. “As per the curriculum, there is
no such thing as an excursion. Students are supposed to go to
industries and get trained for a particular period, which is similar to
an internship,” said N V Ramana Rao, Registrar, JNTU. He said committee
was formed to discuss the safety of the students working in the
industrial areas. Students can, however, go to nearby areas as a part
of their study tour. There have been three such incidents where the
students have gone on industrial tours and lost their lives.
By Mouli Mareedu
moulimareedu@gmail.com
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