13-06-2025
‘Irfan was ecstatic when he got the job': Kin of Air India crew member from Pimpri Chinchwad wait to receive his body
Among the 241 people who perished in Thursday's Air India crash in Ahmedabad, including two pilots and 10 crew members, one was from Pimpri Chinchwad. Close relatives of Irfan Shaikh, 22, a crew member, rushed to Ahmedabad and identified his body soon after the incident but are still waiting to take possession of it.
'In the Ahmedabad plane crash, Irfan Shaikh, brother of Aamir Shaikh, who lives in Pimpri, has been identified as the deceased. The Shaikh family has travelled to Ahmedabad to claim the body. Although the body has been identified, there is delay in further process (sic)…,' Irfan's relative Azhar Shaikh said in a social media post.
Irfan had joined Air India two years ago as a cabin crew member. 'He was earlier with Vistara which merged with Air India,' his uncle Javed Shaikh told this paper.
The Shaikh family has been living in the Sant Tukaram area for more than 40 years. Irfan has an elder brother. He did his schooling from Dr D Y Patil High School, which was located close to his residence, before completing Class 11 and 12 at Jai Hind School, Pimpri.
Relatives and close friends said Irfan was a handsome guy who was always cool and composed. 'He never argued unnecessarily or indulged in quarrels with anyone. It was not in his nature to pick a fight. He was more of a studious kind,' they said.
Ujwal Bhagat, who studied with Irfan Dr D Y Patil School, said, 'After Class 12, I and another classmate went for an aviation course. Irfan did an aviation course from a Pune institute and after that he joined as a cabin crew member.'
Bhagat said Irfan was a career-minded individual and always studied hard. 'I think I got 90 per cent in Class 10 exams and also did well in Class 12. I don't know whether it was his dream to be part of an airplane, but he looked extremely happy when he got the airline job. He was talking about flying high and going to various countries,' he added.
'When he got the job with the airline, Irfan was absolutely ecstatic… He distributed pedhas at the school,' said another former student.
Relatives said Irfan was very close to his mother Taslim. 'He used to send his duty schedule to her cell phone. He would also call and tell his mother when he was flying,' uncle Javed said, adding that Irfan had just come home for Eid celebrations. 'We met and had a general chat. He looked happy and at peace with himself.'
On Thursday when the plane crashed, it was Taslim who saw it on the news. 'As she was aware of his duty schedule, she immediately realised something was wrong. She insisted to be taken to Ahmedabad and proceed on Thursday evening itself with his brother and a relative,' he said.
Manoj More has been working with the Indian Express since 1992. For the first 16 years, he worked on the desk, edited stories, made pages, wrote special stories and handled The Indian Express edition. In 31 years of his career, he has regularly written stories on a range of topics, primarily on civic issues like state of roads, choked drains, garbage problems, inadequate transport facilities and the like. He has also written aggressively on local gondaism. He has primarily written civic stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad, Khadki, Maval and some parts of Pune. He has also covered stories from Kolhapur, Satara, Solapur, Sangli, Ahmednagar and Latur. He has had maximum impact stories from Pimpri-Chinchwad industrial city which he has covered extensively for the last three decades.
Manoj More has written over 20,000 stories. 10,000 of which are byline stories. Most of the stories pertain to civic issues and political ones. The biggest achievement of his career is getting a nearly two kilometre road done on Pune-Mumbai highway in Khadki in 2006. He wrote stories on the state of roads since 1997. In 10 years, nearly 200 two-wheeler riders had died in accidents due to the pathetic state of the road. The local cantonment board could not get the road redone as it lacked funds. The then PMC commissioner Pravin Pardeshi took the initiative, went out of his way and made the Khadki road by spending Rs 23 crore from JNNURM Funds. In the next 10 years after the road was made by the PMC, less than 10 citizens had died, effectively saving more than 100 lives.
Manoj More's campaign against tree cutting on Pune-Mumbai highway in 1999 and Pune-Nashik highway in 2004 saved 2000 trees.
During Covid, over 50 doctors were asked to pay Rs 30 lakh each for getting a job with PCMC. The PCMC administration alerted Manoj More who did a story on the subject, asking then corporators how much money they story worked as doctors got the job without paying a single paisa.
Manoj More has also covered the "Latur drought" situation in 2015 when a "Latur water train" created quite a buzz in Maharashtra. He also covered the Malin tragedy where over 150 villagers had died.
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