Nagpur bizman Kamdar's daughter, grandson die in Ahmedabad crash
Nagpur: City businessman, Manish Kamdar, 62, twice wished his daughter, Yasha, safe journey and spoke to his two-year-old grandson, Rudra, too just before they boarded the Air India (AI) flight to London.
Fifteen minutes later, he heard the plane had crashed. Kamdar, sitting in his Quetta Colony residence in Nagpur, hoped against hope that his daughter and grandson had survived. Soon, the tragedy began to sink in.
Talking to TOI, Kamdar said, "I spoke to her twice before take-off and she seemed excited to go to London and she wished me well. I cannot believe Yasha is no more. Let me see her once." The Kamdars, who run a flourishing signage printing business in Nagpur, swiftly drove down to Ahmedabad.
Yasha Kamdar Modha, 32, who grew up in Nagpur and did her post-graduation in mathematics from Germany, was married into a family in Porbandar. She was travelling with her son, Rudra, and mother-in-law, Rakshaben, to attend a prayer and condolence meeting of her father-in-law in London on June 22. Rakshaben also died in the crash. Yasha's husband, Kishan Modha a businessman dealing in batteries, narrowly escaped tragedy.
He initially planned to join his wife, son, and mother but deferred his travel, a decision that spared his life but left him to bear unimaginable loss. The tragedy plunged the city-based Kamdars and Porbandar's Mohda family into profound grief.
Family sources shared that initial hopes of Rudra's survival were soon dashed.
The Kamdar family's roots in Quetta Colony made their loss deeply personal for Nagpur's Gujarati community.
"The authorities must conduct a high-level probe to unearth the reason behind the accident," a Quetta Colony resident told TOI.
The family was already going through a tough time. Yasha's father-in-law had succumbed to cancer and the family was planning to finally settle down in Gujarat after winding up their business in London, said a relative.
"We had no clue about her well-being, except that Rudra was perhaps safe.
However, I have been desperately calling up the civil surgeon at Ahmedabad, but there was no reply," he said. Yasha is survived by her husband, parent and brother.
Kamdars are an ethnic Gujarati community living in Nagpur for four generations. Even Yasha's family has many relatives here.
The Jain community in Nagpur expressed grief over the death of Manish Kamdar's daughter, Yasha, along with her son and mother-in-law, Rakshaben. The Mahasangh, Sthanakvasi and Dasha Shrimali Samaj offered their condolences and prayers for departed souls.
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