Kin of 5 TN men killed in Ethiopia demand relief

CHENNAI : High drama prevailed at the city airport on Monday morning when bodies of the five Tamil Nadu men killed in a blast at a sugar factory in the Ethiopian capital of Addis Ababaarrived. The relatives of the deceased refused to accept the bodies unless the state government promised that their pending salaries and adequate compensation would be paid. The relatives wanted to walk up to GST Road and block traffic to vent their anger but police officers managed to pacify them. 

The deceased are V Muruganandan, 27, and G Muthukrishnan, 42, of Thanjavur, M Velraj, 29, of Mayiladuthurai in Nagapattinam district, R Devadas, 40, of Thiruvarur, and V Devendran, 34, of Cuddalore. It was only late in the evening, after an assurance from Tamil Nadu minister for housing and urban development R Vaithilingam and written assurances from Mumbai-based Surendra Engineering Corporation LTD, a sub-contractor for the Fincha Sugar Factory Expansion Project in Ethiopia, did the relatives relent and take the bodies home.

M N Pandit, executive director of Surendra Engineering Corporation, said, "We have promised the affected families Rs1 lakh each as compensation and given them in writing that the pending salaries will be deposited in their accounts." A Paramasivam, elder brother of V Devendran, said, "We have lost a bread winner and his family of wife and two children are now left in the lurch. First they offered us 50,000 as compensation and only after we protested they hiked it to 1 lakh." 

Source: timesofindia.indiatimes.com/