A day after Karnataka Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai announced that the body of an Indian student who died in war-torn Ukraine will be airlifted to Bengaluru, the deceased's father on Saturday, 19 March, said that he would donate his son Naveen's body to a hospital.
Naveen's father said that once his son's body arrives in Bengaluru, it will be taken to their village in Haveri for visitors, including political leaders, to pay their last respects. A puja function will be held in the village, he added. "In the evening, we will take my son's body to SS Medical College, Davangere. It will help the future medical students," the father said.
Naveen Shekharappa Gyanagoudar had been standing in a queue to buy groceries at a supermarket in Kharkiv when Russian shelling began in the city on the morning of 1 March. The 21-year-old medical student lost his life in a bomb attack that targeted the Governor's House in the city.
"The body of Naveen Ganagoudar, a young man from Haveri district who had recently died during a Russian invasion of Ukraine, will arrive in Bengaluru on Monday morning, 21 March, at 3 am," Chief Minister Bommai had announced on Friday.
Shekharappa Gyanagoudar, Naveen's father, had earlier said that he had sent his son abroad as medical education in India is very costly.
“If professional education was affordable for the poor in this country, why would I have sent my son to Ukraine and lost him today?” he had been quoted as saying.
The father of the deceased student, who had spoken on the phone with Prime Minister Narendra Modi and CM Bommai after his son's death, had requested the Indian government to bring back Naveen's mortal remains. He had also asked he government to examine the hefty donations that medical colleges demand, forcing Indian students to take admission abroad.