Ras Al Khaimah: Hundreds of people attended the funeral of an Indian teen, who recently died after being swept away in a flash flood in Khor Fakkan, in the South Indian state of Kerala on Saturday.
Albert Joy, 18, was laid to rest at a church cemetery in his hometown in the Pathanamthitta district of Kerala, a relative in Ras Al Khaimah said.
He told Gulf News that several people visited Joy’s parents’ house after his body reached there in the morning.
“There was a procession carrying his body to the church. Several people joined it and hundreds of people attended the funeral at St Sebastian Malankara Catholic Church in Avolikuzhy.”
He said relatives and friends struggled to console the parents and younger sister of Joy when his body was taken for burial.
Joy’s body, which was retrieved from Oman six days after he was washed away on November 16, was flown to Kerala from Sharjah past midnight.
One of the relatives accompanied his family while four colleagues of Joy’s father, who works with Julphar Pharmaceuticals, had left before them to help them arrange the funeral back home.
They were among around 150 people, mostly colleagues and neighbours of Joy’s father, who had supported the authorities in an extensive search for Joy after he went missing.
One of the colleagues said they would continue to support the traumatised family. According to him, Joy’s sister will be taken care of by them till her parents join her here since she has to come back soon due to her schooling.
Joy’s body was found on Wednesday near a dam in Oman’s Madha area, some 20km away from Wadi Shis from where he was swept away in his father’s car.
His body was retrieved following a massive combing operation by the police in the UAE and Oman.
An engineering student of Birla Institute of Technology in Ras Al Khaimah, Joy had gone to the Wadi Shis area with five of his friends to enjoy the rainy weather.
Though his friends escaped with the help of an Emirati man and his employees, Joy was apparently scared to jump into the flood waters and refused to leave his father’s four-wheel drive.
