After an agonising wait of 76 days, relatives of the civilian employees of the Naval Armament Depot here, who went missing along with the AN 32 aircraft of the Indian Air Force, are hoping against hope on their return.
Though the family members admit that their survival chances are bleak, they wonder how one could declare it until availability of conclusive proof. The efforts of the Naval authorities to obtain an NOC from the kin seeking their consent to initiate the process of release of terminal benefits on the ‘presumption of death’ have been declined by the family members.
“The Naval authorities used to give us information about the search till about a week ago. During the past five days, they were seeking our signatures on NOC,” Purnima, whose husband P. Nagendra Rao was in the missing aircraft, told this correspondent at her residence at Gopalapatnam on Thursday evening.
“We asked them whether they had any definite information on the missing aircraft. They said they haven’t received any such information and asked us not to believe rumours. They also said that the search for the missing aircraft is still on,” Mrs. Purnima stated. “We sought a clarification on the NOC and they agreed to call the family members of all the eight missing civilian employees of NAD after Dasara and explain to them. We were given salary till last month but this month we haven’t received it so far,” she said. Mrs. Purnima, who has done B.Sc. (computers), is a housewife. She has two sons, aged 3 and 6. The kids ask: “When will daddy come”? The older one runs to attend the phone, whenever it rings, thinking that it is from his dad. The younger one is getting fever frequently, says Mrs. Purnima, who had received the last call from her husband after he boarded the ill-fated aircraft on July 22.
“We do not know what will happen to us now. Being the older son, he was the hope for our family. My second son is a contract employee in Hyderabad and his income is not enough to take care of all of us,” says Nagendra Rao’s mother P. Eswari.
G. Eswari, wife of G. Srinivasa Rao, another missing NAD employee, is in an advanced stage of pregnancy. A resident of Vepagunta, she already has a 3-year-old daughter.
“How can we declare that our son is dead, when we haven’t seen the body,” says Suridamma, Srinivasa Rao’s mother.
