Body takes up more space in flight: Karnataka MLA kicks up row over Naveen’s ‘dead body’ remark

Bengaluru, Mar 04: Karnataka MLA Arvind Bellad has kicked up a controversy, for an insensitive comment against the Haveri youth who lost his life in Ukraine recently.

The Hubballi-Dharwad West MLA said instead of a coffin, nearly eight to 10 people can be accommodated on the plane.

"It is a war zone. You all are showing the ground situation on television through your channels. Body will be brought once the flight services become operational," Bellad said on Thursday.

"In a situation when bringing the living people is proving to be difficult, it will be even more difficult to bring the body because it occupies more space. In place of it, 10 to 12 people can be brought," the BJP MLA said.

In first Indian casualty in the war in Ukraine, a student from Karnataka was killed in shelling in Kharkiv city on Tuesday morning.

Naveen Shekargouda was killed when he stepped out of his bunker to exchange currency and fetch some food, his uncle Ujjanagouda claimed.

Shekaragouda's residence in Chalageri slipped into gloom upon receiving the news of their child killed in the faraway European nation, with a large number of people thronging the house to console the bereaved family.

Shekaragouda complained that no one from the Indian embassy reached the students stuck in Kharkiv, which is witnessing hostilities. His family members said Naveen was in the fourth year of his course in the Kharkiv medical college.

Ujjanagouda said Naveen along with others from Karnataka was stuck in a bunker in Kharkiv.