Hundreds pay homage to Indian IT techie who was murdered in Sydney

Bengaluru: Hundreds of people, including family members, colleagues and central and state ministers, on Sunday paid homage to the Indian software engineer who was murdered in Australia on March 7. The body of the 41-year-old Prabha from global IT consulting firm Mindtree was flown to the city on Saturday night. It was kept at her relative’s house for people to pay their respects. “The last rites will be held at Prabha’s village Amtur near Mangaluru on Sunday evening,” a family member told IANS before the cortege was flown to Mangaluru by air ambulance. The village lies some 380 km away from here. [caption id=“attachment_2149511” align=“alignleft” width=“380”]  Prabha Arun Kumar.[/caption] Union ministers from the state, Ananth Kumar and D.V. Sadananda Gowda, Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah, Home Minister K.J. George and Infrastructure Minister Roshan Baig were among the dignitaries who paid tributes to Prabha. Prabha’s husband Arun Kumar and her elder brother Shankar Shetty accompanied the cortege from Sydney via Singapore. A company’s senior representative and Prabha’s colleagues also visited the house and mourned her tragic death. Prabha also leaves behind a nine-year-old daughter, Meghana. Even a week after Prabha was stabbed to death at Parramatta Park in Sydney’s Westmead suburb when she was returning to her flat, investigation by Australian police have not traced the unknown assailant. Footage from close circuit television cameras at the railway station showed Prabha walking towards the park while talking on mobile phone, purportedly with her husband who lives in Bengaluru with their only daughter. Kumar later revealed to the Australian police that he heard Prabha telling him that she was stabbed despite pleading with the attacker not to harm her. As the cell phone got disconnected immediately, Kumar could not hear further or know Prabha’s condition subsequently. On learning Prabha’s death due to stabbing, Kumar flew to Sydney on March 8 to join the investigation and bring her body to the city. Autopsy showed that Prabha’s throat was slit with a sharp-edged object. According to Prabha’s flatmate in Sydney, she believed to have seen the attacker approach her and begged for mercy. “Don’t hurt me. I’ll do whatever you want,” Prabha was overheard saying on the mobile and telling Kumar immediately that “he stabbed me,” twice in Kannada, their mother tongue. Prabha was in Sydney since 2012 on a three-year onsite project work and was return to Bengaluru in April. IANS