Bengaluru: “He’s gone! He has left us and gone! Why did this have to happen to him ” cried a distraught Nagamani, tears streaming down her face. Back at the family home in Bidadi, the air was heavy with grief as relatives and friends mourned the loss of businessman B.N. Sudarshan, who was shot dead by al-Shabab militants at a shopping mall in Nairobi last Saturday. The body was flown in to Bengaluru via Dubai around 9 am on Saturday, from where it was taken to his home in Hejjala, Bidadi. The wooden casket containing the sealed body was heavily garlanded, with a portrait of the victim on top. His body was placed in a pandal, which was thronged by people from nearby villages who had either been helped by or heard about Sudarshan. Hugging the casket, Suda rshan’s elder sister Nagamani sobbed, “All my feelings are dead. What is left to say ” A visibly shaken B.N. Ramprasad lamented, “I don’t know if the body belongs to the genuine Sudarshan (sic) or is just an assembled version; after all two postmortems were conducted on his body.” “My brother was a social, amiable person, who never showed the stress he was under. He had been managing our business in Ghana, Liberia, and Uganda for 15 years; and made friends from all corners of the world. He would visit Africa on business at least once or twice a month. Unfort unately, four of his close friends from Ghana, who were supposed to join us, could not make it as there was so much confusion regarding when the body would be brought back,” he explained. Former Chief Minister Sadan anda Gowda visited the bereaved family and offered his condolences. Condemning the terror-attack and stressing that it was a sad day for all countries across the world, the minister stated, “B.N. Sudarshan was a good, family-oriented man, whose social service earned him the respect of others. It is most unfortunate that such a person met with the worst of fates.” Recalling Sudarshan’s helpful nature, his business associate Nagaraj, said, “From taking villagers to the hospital late at night in case of emergencies to helping educate their children, Sudarshan was always generous and selfless in his behaviour. All his friends from different parts of the world will be crying for him today.” The body was taken from the family home to an electrical crematorium in Banashankari, where the last rites were performed on Saturday evening. It may be recalled that Sudarshan left the city last Friday and was in Nairobi during transit for six hours, as his final destination was Ghana. Tragedy struck in those six hours when the exporter went shopping at Westgate Mall on Saturday. He went inside una w are of the presence of the militants and was shot point blank.
