March 28, 2016
NEW DELHI: Raghavendran Ganeshan, the Infosys employee, who had been
reported missing since the terror attacks on the Metro station and the airport in
Brussels, Capital of Belgium, last Tuesday, was confirmed dead on Monday.
Ganeshan's body was handed over to his parents and brother, who reached
Brussels. Manjeev Singh Puri, India’s Ambassador to Belgium, said the body was
being transferred to Schiphol international airport in Amsterdam from where it
would be flown to Chennai, India. It was being escorted by the police to the
Belgian border.
Infosys said in a condolence message, “Our thoughts and prayers are with
Raghavendran’s family and with those who were injured or lost a loved one in
these attacks.”
Earlier, Tamil Nadu Chief Minister J Jayalalitha had urged Prime Minister Narendra
Modi to direct the Ministry of External Affairs (MEA) and the Indian Embassy in
Belgium to provide help to the family of the Tamil Nadu resident, Raghavendran
Ganeshan, to locate him.
Raghavendran's phone call records indicated that he was travelling in the city
metro at the time of the explosions. There are also reports of his friends getting
messages from him on the social media that he was safe.
He was at the Montgomery metro station just before 9 am on the fateful day. The
blast at the Maelbeek Metro Station that falls after Montgomery occurred a little
after 9 am. The blast at the station that followed the terror attacks at the airport
killed 20 people.
“We have tracked his last call in Brussels. He was travelling in the metro rail,”
External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj had tweeted on Thursday.
Raghavendran’s younger brother Chandrasekar Ganeshan, who works as a software
engineer in Germany, had also joined the search operations.
Raghavendran has been working for a Belgian telecom firm for the past few
years.
There were around 200 people injured in the blasts and admitted in various
hospitals. Their identities were not disclosed till over the weekend. Hundreds of
passengers were still stranded at the airport till after several days. Two Jet
Airways crew members were also injured. The Indian Government assisted Jet
Airways to evacuate the stranded Indian citizens over the weekend.
The Belgian Police have arrested eight people in connection with the airport and metro
suicide bombings in Brussels.
