Mangalore plane crash compensation row - Pravasi Sangam organizes protest fast

Mangalore plane crash compensation row - Pravasi Sangam organizes protest fast

Mangalore Today News Network

Mangalore, Feb 15, 2012: Pravasi Sangam, a Kerala-based organization of foreign-returned Indians focusing on overseas affairs, staged a protest fast against discrepancies in disbursing compensation to the kin of the victims of the Mangalore plane crash of 2010 in front Air India’s office in Mangalore on Feb 15 Wednesday. 

The protest fast, which commenced at 10:00 a.m., will continue till 4:00 p.m. 

 

 

 

Uduma MLA K. Kunhiraman, who inaugurated the protest fast, said that AI has not assessed the compensation for each family properly, making it necessary for the organization to hold a protest fast one year after the tragedy. AI is biased in disbursing compensations, he alleged. 

B. Madhava, the secretary of the Dakshina Kannada CPI (M), said that law is equal to all according to the Indian Constitution. Although it is not suggested anywhere in the Constitution that the lives of the poor are worth less than the lives of the rich, the AI has made such a discrimination among the families of the victims. 

Alleging that the AI has compensated families as per the financial worth and status of the victims, he said that the poor are still struggling to get the compensation due to them. 

Stating that the DYFI had staged a protest last year, but the struggles of families of poor victims has not yet caught the attention of the central government. He said that the AI and the central government have acted in utter disregard of the Indian Constitution and have discriminated among families while disbursing compensations. 

Flaying Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, he said that he finds it surprising that the PM is least bothered about this issue. 

Among those who participated in the protest were P. K. Abdulla, the central vice president of the Pravasi Sangam; MLA K. V. Abdul Khader, the general secretary of the central committee of the Kerala Pravasi Sangam; and many others.