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The Independent
13 hours ago
- General
- The Independent
‘It's all very raw': Twenty victims of the Air India plane crash connected to the same London temple
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been left in mourning after the Air India plane disaster claimed more than 240 lives on Thursday. But one north-west London community, some 4,000 miles away from the Ahmedabad crash site, is feeling the impact more than most. Twenty of the victims have connections to the same temple in Harrow, its leader has said, with multiple families now trying to come to terms with what has happened. Among those killed in the Dreamliner disaster are a mother and father who lost their son, a pilot, in a plane crash in France just a few years ago. Click here for the latest updates on the crash. Members of the British Gujarati community have been gathering to pay their respects and grieve at the International Siddhashram Shakti Centre, which is just tucked off the high street. Speaking to The Independent, spiritual leader Shri Rajrajeshwar Guruji described the crash as a 'huge loss', adding that he personally knew of 20 people who boarded the doomed Air India flight. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed shortly after clearing the runway at Ahmedabad Airport, with a huge fireball appearing after it collided into a medical college housing dozens of doctors. Mr Guruji, who is from the Gujurati region but has lived in the UK since 1993, said: 'I have good communication with the people there, and I woke up to see so many calls. There were messages to say there has been a crash. 'The day before yesterday my priest who works here in the temple had flown from Gatwick to Ahmedabad on the same flight. He was on the same plane that crashed but travelling on the way out.' After frantically calling his colleague who reassured him he was safe, Mr Guruji began receiving endless phone calls both from people on the ground in India, and from his worshippers who had lost loved ones or had known people on the flight. 'I had a message from a police officer from Gujarati who said the former chief minister Vijay Rupani was on it, he has previously worshipped here. I was then given a list of people on the flight from Indian police and I was checking the names, and I could see some of them were familiar. 'Then people kept calling me to say 'so and so were on the flight' and so I eventually knew 20 people personally who had been lost,' he said. He then spent the remainder of his day speaking on the phone to the families of the victims, and contacting their wider relatives to inform them and to offer them support and comfort. 'One family, they have lost a couple, a mother and father have both died. A few years ago, three or four years ago, their son died. He was a pilot, his flight crashed in France. It was a passenger jet and he was the pilot. Yesterday, his parents were travelling back from India and now both are gone.' According to Hindu beliefs, the process of cremation and scattering of ashes is a part of liberating the soul and bringing peace to the deceased. But the nature of the crash means that some of the victims' bodies may not be found. Police officers on the ground in Ahmedabad have described the scene as 'chaos' in their calls to Mr Guruji, and he remains in close contact with relatives and spiritual leaders in Gujurati. Navin Shah, a retired architect and former Labour chair of the London Assembly, worships at the Harrow temple. He was horrified by the crash that destroyed a densely populated area near his hometown. Having been born and raised less than 10 miles from the crash site, Mr Shah is intimately familiar with the area. He lived there for 15 years before moving to the UK and shared his concerns that the number of dead on the ground remains unknown. 'We know that the plane crashed into a housing complex called Meghani Nagar, but I understand there was a slum, a hutted area, with poor people living there. If they have been wiped out, that's another factor that deeply concerns me,' he said. Mr Shah first received a call at 8.30am from his nephew, who lives just four miles away from the airport, who informed him of the tragedy. Soon afterwards, he realised that the majority of those killed had connections to areas such as Harrow, Brent, and Leicester, and that his community would be disproportionately affected. 'We had a prayer at the temple last night and I met a young man, 20 years old, whose grandparents had perished in the plane,' Mr Shah said. 'I was speechless, I didn't have the heart to express my feelings - I pretty much broke down. One young lady had lost her father-in-law and she was crying away. It's all very raw at the moment.' Over the coming days, services and prayers are due to be held at the Harrow centre, including an inter-faith ceremony on Saturday to commemorate the dead.
Telegraph
18 hours ago
- General
- Telegraph
The London community hollowed out by Air India crash
When Air India flight 171 went down, it sent shock waves across the world, but the grief was particularly acute in a close-knit Hindu community of north-west London. At the International Siddhashram Shakti Centre in Harrow, at least 20 members of the Hindu ashram lost loved ones when the Air India flight hit a medical hostel just seconds after take-off from Ahmedabad airport on Thursday. Shri Rajrajeshwar Guruji, the temple's spiritual leader, led multi-faith prayers and a candlelit vigil in memory of the dead on Saturday. 'We all need to be united to support our community. It is very sad news,' he said, adding the prayer 'God, please do not give this kind of death to others. 'People, they are born, and their death is a normal cycle for the human being, but this type of death is unbelievable.' Representatives from Sikh, Christian, Muslim, Jewish and Zoroastrian communities also led prayers at the ceremony, where the Guruji and Cllr Anjana Patel, the newly elected mayor of Harrow, revealed their personal connections to the tragedy. Shri Rajrajeshwar Guruji recalled his recent encounter with the former Gujarat chief minister, Vijay Rupani, who had visited the temple for tea. 'I remember he was sitting in my office, having tea, and suddenly, on the 12th of June, I heard the message. The person who I know very well, he is no more,' he said. 'Two weeks ago, I was talking to one of the family members [who were on the flight], and he was travelling back to India. He said, 'Guruji when I will be back, we will get together'. Now, the day is never going to come back.' The spiritual leader said the 'big lesson' from this tragedy is 'please be kind with your family and friends'. Attendees became visibly emotional after Cllr Anjana Patel addressed the plight of two young girls from Harrow who were orphaned in the crash. 'The saddest incident we have got here in Harrow is that one parent had already died here because of cancer,' she said, as the crowd audibly gasped. Their father, Arjun Patoliya, 37, had flown to India to scatter his wife's ashes. Bharti Patel, 43, had died of cancer just three weeks earlier. 'The husband goes to do the rituals in India, and coming back on that flight, he also is obviously no more,' said the mayor. 'So he has left two very small little girls behind. The girls are now orphans. I really, really do pray and hope that those girls will be very well looked after by all of us.' The Mayor, whose family is from Gujarat, the Indian state where the crash occurred, revealed she had lost a relative. 'I myself know that my sister-in-law's cousin has passed away in this incident,' she told the congregation. Speaking to The Telegraph afterwards, she reflected on her own personal grief. 'Every life lost is obviously very important, and I feel very sad about it. But when somebody is close to you, if you know them, even from a distance, it makes you even more sad, and it really breaks your heart when it happens,' she said. A patron of the temple's charity, Simon Ovens, who also acts as the King's representative, read out a personal message from His Majesty to the congregation. Signed 'Charles R', it said: 'My wife and I have been desperately shocked by the terrible events in Ahmedabad. Our special prayers and deepest possible sympathies are with the families and friends of all those affected by this appalling, tragic incident across so many nations as they await news of their loved ones.' His Majesty also paid tribute to 'the heroic efforts of the emergency services and all those providing help and support at this most heartbreaking and traumatic time'. The MP for East Harrow Bob Blackman also addressed the congregation, remarking on the scale and brutal nature of the community's loss, the death of 53 British nationals, which he said was 'the highest level of deaths of British nationals in an air crash ever.' 'We come together in mourning. When someone dies of illness, or old age, we celebrate their lives, we mourn the fact that they died. But when an air crash happens, completely unpredictable, people are taken away from us immediately, just like that.' Mr Blackman added: 'And now of course we move onto why did it happen, how did it happen, was there anything that could have been done to prevent this. 'Those investigations will go on and I know that the families will expect the position to be absolutely transparent because without that people will not have closure.'
The Independent
2 days ago
- General
- The Independent
‘It's all very raw': Twenty victims of the Air India plane disaster connected to the same London temple
Hundreds, if not thousands, of people have been left in mourning after the Air India plane disaster claimed more than 240 lives on Thursday. But one north-west London community, some 4,000 miles away from the Ahmedabad crash site, is feeling the impact more than most. Twenty of the victims have connections to the same temple in Harrow, its leader has said, with multiple families now trying to come to terms with what has happened. Among those killed in the Dreamliner disaster are a mother and father who lost their son, a pilot, in a plane crash in France just a few years ago. Click here for the latest updates on the crash. Members of the British Gujarati community have been gathering to pay their respects and grieve at the International Siddhashram Shakti Centre, which is just tucked off the high street. Speaking to The Independent, spiritual leader Shri Rajrajeshwar Guruji described the crash as a 'huge loss', adding that he personally knew of 20 people who boarded the doomed Air India flight. The Boeing 787 Dreamliner crashed shortly after clearing the runway at Ahmedabad Airport, with a huge fireball appearing after it collided into a medical college housing dozens of doctors. Mr Guruji, who is from the Gujurati region but has lived in the UK since 1993, said: 'I have good communication with the people there, and I woke up to see so many calls. There were messages to say there has been a crash. 'The day before yesterday my priest who works here in the temple had flown from Gatwick to Ahmedabad on the same flight. He was on the same plane that crashed but travelling on the way out.' After frantically calling his colleague who reassured him he was safe, Mr Guruji began receiving endless phone calls both from people on the ground in India, and from his worshippers who had lost loved ones or had known people on the flight. 'I had a message from a police officer from Gujarati who said the former chief minister Vijay Rupani was on it, he has previously worshipped here. I was then given a list of people on the flight from Indian police and I was checking the names, and I could see some of them were familiar. 'Then people kept calling me to say 'so and so were on the flight' and so I eventually knew 20 people personally who had been lost,' he said. He then spent the remainder of his day speaking on the phone to the families of the victims, and contacting their wider relatives to inform them and to offer them support and comfort. 'One family, they have lost a couple, a mother and father have both died. A few years ago, three or four years ago, their son died. He was a pilot, his flight crashed in France. It was a passenger jet and he was the pilot. Yesterday, his parents were travelling back from India and now both are gone.' According to Hindu beliefs, the process of cremation and scattering of ashes is a part of liberating the soul and bringing peace to the deceased. But the nature of the crash means that some of the victims' bodies may not be found. Police officers on the ground in Ahmedabad have described the scene as 'chaos' in their calls to Mr Guruji, and he remains in close contact with relatives and spiritual leaders in Gujurati. Navin Shah, a retired architect and former Labour chair of the London Assembly, worships at the Harrow temple. He was horrified by the crash that destroyed a densely populated area near his hometown. Having been born and raised less than 10 miles from the crash site, Mr Shah is intimately familiar with the area. He lived there for 15 years before moving to the UK and shared his concerns that the number of dead on the ground remains unknown. 'We know that the plane crashed into a housing complex called Meghani Nagar, but I understand there was a slum, a hutted area, with poor people living there. If they have been wiped out, that's another factor that deeply concerns me,' he said. Mr Shah first received a call at 8.30am from his nephew, who lives just four miles away from the airport, who informed him of the tragedy. Soon afterwards, he realised that the majority of those killed had connections to areas such as Harrow, Brent, and Leicester, and that his community would be disproportionately affected. 'We had a prayer at the temple last night and I met a young man, 20 years old, whose grandparents had perished in the plane,' Mr Shah said. 'I was speechless, I didn't have the heart to express my feelings - I pretty much broke down. One young lady had lost her father-in-law and she was crying away. It's all very raw at the moment.' Over the coming days, services and prayers are due to be held at the Harrow centre, including an inter-faith ceremony on Saturday to commemorate the dead.
