Mumbai: The mortal remains of additional chief engineer (superintendent) Deonandan Prasad Singh (54) arrived in India after a 22-day wait following his death aboard the Marshall Islands-flagged oil tanker MT Safesea Vishnu, which was attacked on March 11 night near Khor AL Zubair Port close to Basra in Iraq. The attack occurred hours after Singh, who lived in Kandivli, last spoke with his daughter and other family members.Singh’s family members said he was on a shore job for the last few years, before his company, Bravo Shipping, forced him to join the ship in Feb. They alleged that the shipping company has neither called them nor helped expedite the process of bringing his mortal remains back to India.Singh’s mortal remains arrived in Delhi and reached Patna on Wednesday. From Patna, the remains were taken by ambulance to Rani Bamiya village in the Sanhaula block of Bhagalpur district, where his final rites were conducted. “Had authorities been little proactive, we would not have waited 22 days for his mortal remains. I did all the legwork to get the matter expedited after the ministry and authorities took information from us over phone and then emailed us. Bravo Shipping has not spoken with family,” Singh’s brother-in-law Dr Chandan Kumar told TOI on Thursday. A source from Director General of Shipping, Mumbai, said they have initiated the process of compensation from the company for Singh’s family. Singh’s friend from Navi Mumbai, Vishal Jaiswal, said in a Facebook post that the conflict in the Middle East brought devastation to their doorstep. His post said: “In the morning, tragedy struck us hard and completely out of the blue. We were shocked to hear that our classmate, #DeoNandanPrasadSingh, a seafarer whose ship was on anchorage in #Basra, was attacked, and we lost him. His daughter, an incredibly brave young medical student, stood like the Rock of Gibraltar for her mother, holding her, comforting her, throughout our journey from Mumbai to Delhi. But in the end, even she broke down. She is still waiting for her brother to arrive from Japan, where he is currently on a study tour. She is asking questions for which none of us have answers: Why was her father the only one who died when everyone else was rescued in the attack? Why will she never see her father again?”
