The parents and kin of G V Loganathan, one of the victims in the shooting at Virginia Tech University in the US, will go to the varsity to perform his last rites, one of his family members said today.
Loganathan, a native of Karatadipalayam in Gobichettipalayam in Tamil Nadu's Erode district, had expressed a wish that his body should be buried in Virginia if something happened to him there, his brother Palanivel told PTI on phone from Gobichettipalayam.
The 51-year-old Indian-born professor was among the 33 people killed in a shooting in the university on Monday. Though the external affairs ministry has expressed its willingness to bring his body to India, the parents, in order to fulfil their son's wish, wanted to go to the US, Palanivel said.
Besides the parents, three brothers, their wives and Loganathan's father-in-law will go to Virginia as soon as possible, he said. Since the parents and two family members have no passports, Erode's district collector has been approached to provide necessary help for the journey, he said.
Breaking down, Palanivel said: "We don't know what to do. He was the guiding force for all of us. He had a great passion for teaching and devoted his entire life to teaching. It is very sad that he had to lose his life in the US."
Loganathan had been living in the US for 30 years and his elder daughter is a final-year student of bio-medical engineering there, he said. Palanivel said his brother had indicated that he wanted to return to India and settle at his native place at some point of time. He said the family had learnt of Loganthan's death from TV news channels at around 3 am. "Then we rang our sister-in-law and she told us that some incident had taken place in the university... She confirmed that my brother was no more," Palanivel said.
The entire family is in a state of shock and disbelief, Palanivel said, A large number of people visited Loganathan's ancestral house to offer condolences.