File photo: Prabha with her husband Arun Kumar.
Hundreds of people, including family members, colleagues and central and state ministers, today paid homage to the Indian software engineer who was murdered in Australia on March 7.
The body of the 41-year-old Prabha Ananth Kumar from global IT consulting firm Mindtree was flown to Bengaluru on Saturday night. It was kept at her relative's house for people to pay their respects.
"The last rites will be held at Prabha's village Amtur near Mangaluru on Sunday evening," a family member told IANS before the cortege was flown to Mangaluru by air ambulance. The village lies some 380 km away from Bengaluru.
Union ministers from the state, Ananth Kumar and DV Sadananda Gowda, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Home Minister KJ George and Infrastructure Minister Roshan Baig were among the dignitaries who paid tributes to Ms Kumar.
Her husband Arun Kumar and her elder brother Shankar Shetty accompanied the cortege from Sydney via Singapore.
A company's senior representative and Ms Kumar's colleagues also visited the house and mourned her tragic death. Ms Kumar also leaves behind a nine-year-old daughter, Meghana.
Even a week after Ms Kumar was stabbed to death at Parramatta Park in Sydney's Westmead suburb when she was returning to her flat, investigation by Australian police have not traced the unknown assailant.
Footage from close circuit television cameras at the railway station showed her walking towards the park while talking on mobile phone, purportedly with her husband who lives in Bengaluru with their only daughter.
Mr Kumar later revealed to the Australian police that he heard her telling him that she was stabbed despite pleading with the attacker not to harm her.
As the cell phone got disconnected immediately, Mr Kumar could not hear further or know Ms Kumar's condition subsequently.
On learning Ms Kumar death due to stabbing, Mr Kumar flew to Sydney on March 8 to join the investigation and bring her body to the city.
Autopsy showed that her throat was slit with a sharp-edged object.
According to her flatmate in Sydney, she believed to have seen the attacker approach her and begged for mercy.
"Don't hurt me. I'll do whatever you want," Ms Kumar was overheard saying on the mobile and telling Mr Kumar immediately that "he stabbed me," twice in Kannada, their mother tongue.
Ms Kumar was in Sydney since 2012 on a three-year onsite project work and was return to Bengaluru in April.