The children of Jacintha Saldanha, son Junal (right) and daughter Lisha (left), arrive at the airport in Mangalore, yesterday.
Mangalore: The body of an Indian-born nurse who was found hanged after taking a hoax call to the hospital treating Prince William’s wife arrived in Mangalore yesterday following a memorial mass in London.
Jacintha Saldanha, 46, apparently committed suicide after answering the prank telephone call from two Australian radio DJs to the hospital where Catherine was admitted during the early stages of her pregnancy.
Her funeral is expected to take place today near Mangalore in Shirva, the home town of her husband Benedict Barboza. He accompanied her body to India along with their son, 16, and daughter, 14. “Jacintha and her family were working in the UK to earn their daily bread,” Stany Tauro, priest of the Our Lady of Health Church in Shirva said. “The community is sad over the death.”
He said locals were proud that she had been a successful nurse who worked in a hospital where the British royal family were treated, but many were shocked at the tragedy.
Tauro said residents would be able to pay final respects to the body before the mass scheduled at 4pm and the burial ceremony. C Mutthiah, deputy commissioner of police in Mangalore, confirmed the body had landed in Mangalore, while a family source said that it would be kept in a mortuary overnight and taken to Shirva today.
Saldanha’s frail mother lives with her other daughter and a son in Mangalore, 360km from Bangalore in the western state of Karnataka.“I feel very sorry that those two kids, they lost their mother’s love and affection,” said local politician D V Sadananda Gowda after visiting a family relative.
AFP
