Last rites of Anuj Bidve performed in Pune

The last rites of Anuj Bidve, the student who was killed in Britain in an apparent case of hate-crime, were performed in Pune on Saturday evening.

Scores of people including his relatives, friends and neighbours attended the funeral procession from Chandan Nagar to Yerawada on the outskirts of the city, after the body was brought from Manchester by his parents today.

The Bidves, who lost their only son in an unprovoked attack by a 20-year-old British youth in Manchester on December 26, were inconsolable as the body was taken out of the house for the last journey.

Anuj's father Subhash Bidve had said that he had confidence in the judicial system in the United Kingdom, and hoped that such crimes would not recur as a large number of students go to Britain from India for higher studies.

"Our world is finished," Subhash had said.

A Manchester police team visited the family in Pune early this week to apprise them of the sequence of events that led to the tragic death of Anuj, who was doing his MS at Lancaster University.

Pune Mayor Mohansingh Rajpal, who attended the funeral, said there was a need to counsel students going abroad about racist undercurrents in foreign countries.