Bhubaneshwar: The body of the first Indian casualty of the Israel-Lebanon conflict, Devesh Kumar Swain, reached Bhubaneswar on Monday.
A resident of Kendrapara district in Orissa, 40-year-old Swain was killed in Lebanon last week when Israeli bombs hit the glass factory he was working in.
He had been working in Lebanon for the past two years and had been preparing to return to India when the war broke out. His wife and three young children are still grappling with their loss.
"How would his children survive? There is no other earning member. The government should come forward for helping his family," says Devesh’s nephew, Sudhansu Shekhar Swain.
Orissa chief minister Naveen Patnaik was present at the airport to receive Swain's body.
"It is a very tragic moment. The Orissa government would give Rs 25,000 from the chief minister's relief fund for his last rites expenses."
Ironically, even as Devesh's body reaches his village, another family in the same village can take heart from the fact that their son Anil, who had been missing in Lebanon since last week, is safe and on his way back home.
Just two weeks back Devesh was with his family in Orissa before he left for Lebanon, hardly knowing that it would be his last journey.
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