A week on, kin yet to get Kerala PhD student’s body from Germany

Arun Sathyan, a student at University Medical Centre in Göttingen, drowned in a lake on June 25. Family is awaiting a no objection certificate from the embassy and an embalming certificate, as friends raise funds for repatriation.

Chennai:

A week after a 25-year-old student from Kerala accidentally drowned at a lake in Göttingen in Germany, the family and friends of the student are struggling to bring his body back to India to perform the last rites.

Arun Sathyan, who was pursuing his PhD at University Medical Centre in Göttingen (UMG), drowned in the Rosdorfer Baggersee lake on June 25 (Saturday). Sathyan, a native of Kochi in Kerala, is survived by his parents and a younger brother.

“Last week around 3 pm, Arun had decided to go out to swim at the Rosdorfer Baggersee lake with his friends. But since his friends did not join, he decided to go by himself. He went to the lake in the area where you are not allowed to swim,” said Mayank Chaudhary, one of Arun’s friends.

Arun was to meet his friends in the evening for dinner. As he did not turn up, his friends tried to contact him over phone, but in vain. So they began searching for him at 6 pm.

“We assumed he would be back by night, but when he did not return we went to the police at 6 am, the next day.”