Melbourne: The body of a 26-year-old Indian student in New Zealand who drowned in the sea will now be sent back with help of public donations worth USD 23,000 after his family in India could not afford to pay for funeral and transport costs.
Boobesh Palani, 26, was pulled from the harbour off the coast of Eastbourne in Wellington at 10.30 pm on March 30. He was taken to Wellington Hospital, where he died on Friday.
Friends and members of Wellington's Indian community heard that his family in India could not afford the funeral and transport costs to repatriate his body, and so set up a fund to help.
Senthil Kumaran Kathiresan, Rama Ramanathan and Moorthy Sukari had raised USD 3,800 towards the costs by Monday, but were still well short of their USD 25,000 target - USD 15,000 for the funeral and transport costs, and USD 10,000 for the family to cover extra expenses, the Dominion Post reported.
But after news of their appeal, about USD 20,000 was raised overnight. Ramanathan said on Wednesday that the fund had reached USD 23,000 and enough money had been pledged to make them confident of sending Palani home at the earliest.
"It was amazing. I couldn't believe it," he said. "It's a tremendous response. We didn't think we would raise it all this fast. We were thinking we would have to do a sausage sizzle on a couple of weekends or something."
Kathiresan, who was a good friend of Palani, said that he could not thank people enough for donating. "I can't even explain how much it means to have this. Thank you."
He described Palani as a quiet, soft-spoken man who loved cricket and enjoyed playing the indoor version with his friends. The family would have done anything to have their boy back, but that would have meant going into debt. None of them holds a current passport, so they could not fly to New Zealand to organise sending him home, Kathiresan said.
"They are never going to leave their son here, but ... since he came here we thought we would support him by raising funds to send him home".
He had been in contact with Palani's father and said that the family was in shock.
"The father is managing to cope, but the mother and sister weren't able to digest the news well and ended up falling ill. The family is very shocked".
The three men are contacting funeral directors, airlines, and various authorities to find out how quickly they can get Palani's body home.