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The 'Little Soldiers' had gone to wage a battle in a FIDE-conducted chess tournament in Puri but instead of laurels and titles their bodies arrived in coffins.
Heart-rending scenes were witnessed when Falkanuma Express chugged in at the Secunderabad railway station on Tuesday afternoon. The South Central Railway made a noble gesture by diverting the train to platform number one instead of the regular five.
Sports fraternity, including All England champion Pullela Gopi Chand, Maxwell Trevor, Mulini Reddy were all there along with Sports Minister T Sitaram, APOA president and secretary
H J Dora and L Venkatram Reddy, SAAP managing Director L V Subramanyam, Hyderabad district
Collector Rajeshwar Tiwari and National Games special officer E Bala Prasad to personally receive two of the five bodies that came to Secunderabad. They carried the coffins to the waiting ambulances.
The bodies of M Hema Madhuri, who resides in Ramnanagar in the city, Sekhar (not Chandrasekhar as reported in these columns) of Godavarikhani, were brought in coffins and taken in
SAAP-arranged ambulances.
While Asian Under -
10 champion Minu's and Haricharan's coffins were unloaded at Guntur to be taken to
Ongole, Under - 10 Asian boys champion M Abhinav's was taken to his native Kodad from Vijayawada station and escorted by the respective district
Collectors. The visibly moved relatives of Madhuri and Sekhar were speechless and were consoled by Sitaram. The situation at Madhuri's house was moving. The families and relatives of the chess player did not know what struck them. They were dumb-founded. Their swollen faces said it all.
Gopi Chand, at a loss for words, wondered why it had happened to such small kids.
"I am really shocked.''
The Chess Association of Hyderabad's
President Siva Prasad who along with SAAP Deputy Director D Ravi had gone to Orissa to personally supervise the arrangements, was visibly moved.
"The Tata Sumo does not look like a van. It was reduced to a rickshaw,'' said Prasad.
Ravi said that the Tata Sumo's owner was not willing to go but the children insisted on going so as to reach the destination early.
"The owner is a shattered man.''
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