Indian family makes Facebook appeal to get son's body home

Dec 28, 2011, 9:01 GMT

New Delhi - An Indian father who learned on Facebook of his son's death in a racial attack in Britain is using the social networking site to try and get his body home, Indian Express newspaper reported Wednesday.

Subhash Bidve discovered that his 23-year-old son Anuj Bidve had died when his friends contacted him through Facebook.

A student at Britain's Lancaster University, Anuj was shot in the head at point-blank range Monday during a visit to Manchester.

British police said Tuesday they had arrested two white teenagers - a 16-year-old and a 17-year-old - in connection with the incident, IANS news agency reported.

While returning to their hotel, the group of visiting Indian students were reportedly approached by two strangers, one of whom, without any apparent provocation, took out a gun and shot Bidve.

'As his horrified friends tried desperately to give him first aid, the killer and his accomplice ran off,' they wrote in a Facebook post. He died soon after in a Manchester hospital.

Subhash Bidve said he had been told by the British police that it would take two to four weeks to get his son's body home as many British offices were closed for the Christmas vacations.

Bidve hopes a Facebook post by a friend based in Pune will help to quicken the process.

'We have lost everything ... We cannot wait two to four weeks that the police are giving us,' Subhash Bidve said.

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