It's been exactly two months today, but the horrific incident of 12 June 2025 will never be forgotten. It was the day I lost my 32-year-old daughter in the tragic crash of the London-bound Air India flight in Ahmedabad.
In that moment, everything changed. Our world was upended, and life as we knew it would never be the same.
Till 11 June, Harpreet was busy with office work and couldn’t go out to buy essentials. She gave us a list of items—including snacks, her lenses, and medicines—which she packed herself, managing with just 3-4 hours of sleep. The next day, she finished packing for her trip to London to meet her husband before I went to drop her off at the airport.
At the airport, she asked me to wait outside in case she needed to hand me back any items on account of overweight luggage, which she eventually did.
Even today, those items are just lying at home the way she had given them to me. I often think… if only, for some reason, she had missed that flight, or never boarded it, she would still be here with us today. But perhaps the almighty had a different plan.
'Impossible To Forget That Day'
Just minutes before take-off, she messaged her mother on WhatsApp: ‘Mummy, I love you a lot,’ and then typed ‘Mummy’ a few times. Moments later, we heard the devastating news—a flight had crashed near Ahmedabad airport.
As soon as we heard the news, we rushed to the airport. At the airport, someone told us that all the victims had been sent to different hospitals. Upon multiple enquiries, we got to know that everyone was taken to the civil hospital.
It's very difficult to explain, only if words could describe our emotions, what we were going through as we ran around at the civil hospital.
We kept searching for Harpreet from one ward of the hospital to another for hours, but we couldn't find her. Later that evening, we were asked for a DNA sample and were informed, everyone, except one passenger, had died in the crash.
That news struck like a lightning bolt to our hearts, and its echo still lives within us, even after two months.
'We Couldn't See Her For The Last Time'
The grief increases manifold when we think that we couldn’t even see her one last time. Her body was given to us 3-4 days after the crash, in a coffin, and we were told not to open it.
We performed her final rites without even seeing her one last time, and this grief just refuses to leave us.
And when, days later, we read reports that some families of victims were complaining about being given the wrong bodies, we couldn’t help but wonder—what if the person we received wasn’t even Harpreet?
If we had been able to see her one last time, perhaps we would have found some closure… but instead, we are left here, aching endlessly in her memory.
'Without Harpreet, A Part Of Us Is Gone Forever'
Harpreet was the child we had deeply longed and prayed for… She was born four years after our marriage. We bowed our heads in gurdwaras, praying with all our hearts for the blessing of her presence in our lives.
She had a degree in software engineering from Gandhinagar, and was working in Pune till 2019, the year she got married. In 2022, her husband got offered a job in London, and they moved there.
She always wanted to be financially independent. In 2023, after staying there for around more than a year, she came back to India because she wasn't able to get a job there. When she came back, she got a job as an automation tester at an IT company in Bengaluru.
She got a work-from-home opportunity for 2-3 months from her job, so she booked the ticket for 12 June. But she would have returned in two months.
We would have counted the days till she returned. Now, we are left counting the days since she left us.
'Harpreet's Story Won't End Here'
In her memory, we have decided to establish a trust by the name 'Ram Harpreet' to educate poor children who are unable to study due to a lack of funds. The procedure is underway, and we have already started pooling money from within our family and friends.
We haven’t received any compensation yet—but whenever we do, whether from the airline, the insurance company, or the government, we have already informed them about our initiative, and requested them that the entire amount be given directly to the trust.
Everyone says what will happen if we make a trust. But to keep her memory alive, we will do this. If any child is able to study and do well in life, we would feel that Harpreet supported them.
(All 'My Report' branded stories are submitted by citizen journalists to The Quint. Though The Quint inquires into the claims/allegations from all parties before publishing, the report and the views expressed above are the citizen journalist's own. The Quint neither endorses nor is responsible for the same.)