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Sharjah-based couple die in Kerala accident

DUBAI - A Sharjah-based Indian couple were killed in a horrific highway accident in the south Indian city of Trivandrum.

According to sources, Suja, 41, and Varghese Mathew, 45, both from Kerala, were on their way to the Trivandrum International Airport on Thursday night when the car they were travelling in crashed into a wall near the Kazhakootam Military School in the Kerala capital city. According to police, the wall collapsed on top of the car, crushing the couple to death.

A friend and colleague told Khaleej Times that the couple, who came from Chennithala in Alappuzha district and have two daughters, had flown to India on April 1 as Suja’s mother was to undergo a hysterectomy operation back home.

Mathew, known among friends as Shaji, and elder daughter Jisha, 17, were travelling with Suja to see off the latter who was to resume duty in Sharjah on April 16. Shaji, who worked as an X-ray technician with Sharjah Military Hospital, had decided to stay back longer to look after his own ailing father.

The injured Jisha is under treatment at the Kerala Institute of Medical Sciences (KIMS), Trivandrum. Her younger sister had not accompanied the family to the airport.

The friend said Suja, who worked as a laboratory technician at Al Zahra Hospital in Sharjah, had called her colleagues on Thursday morning as well as evening to check her duty timings and had talked about her mother’s operation.

According to the friend, the car was just minutes away from the airport when the tragedy hit the family. Shaji, who was sitting in the front passenger seat, reportedly died instantly while Suja, who was in the back seat, behind her husband, was alive when the ill-fated car was discovered by a police patrol well past midnight. The friend said according to information reaching her, the police patrol had noticed the car earlier but thought it was parked near the wall.

The police got suspicious when they noticed the vehicle again on their return trip. Suja, who suffered serious injury above one of her eyes, tried to talk to the rescuers but died on the way to the hospital. Friends believe Suja’s life could have been saved if help had reached in time.

A police official at Pothencode station said that the car driver identified as Mathukutty was a diabetic patient. They suspect that he may have lost control of the vehicle due to hypoglycemia. The police have registered a case against the driver.

Friends said both Suja, who had been working with Al Zahra Hospital since November 30, 2010, and Shaji, who had been working in Sharjah for almost a decade, were good natured and were liked for their socialising. Only last year, they had sent their daughters to India for education. They are studying in 10^th and 11^th standards.

The couple were buried at the St. George Orthodox Valiya Palli at Chennithala on Tuesday.

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