US car crash victim’s kin wait for body

The environs in Ayodhyanagar in Mehdipatnam wore a gloomy look with all activities coming to a halt on Saturday. Local residents, friends and relatives made a beeline to the house of Raavikanti Srinivas who died in the ghastly road accident along with four friends at Oklahoma City in US, to console the family members.

Srinivas and his friends Venkat, Jaswanth Reddy Subbayyagari, Anurag Anthati and Phanindra Gade were killed in the accident. They all hailed from Andhra Pradesh, and were working as software engineers in US.

Around 1 a.m. on August 10, police say, the car was driving eastbound on Interstate 40, exiting to the I-35 onramp when it hit a heavy vehicle.

Srinivas worked as a senior software engineer in Wipro Technologies before joining as ETL Developer in Devon Energy Company at Oklahoma City.

His parents and his brothers are staying at Ayodhyanagar in Mehdipatnam for the last four years. Bhoomaiah, father of Srinivas, retired from Singareni Collieries and the family hails from Godavarikhani in Karimnagar district.

Presently, the bodies have not been officially identified. Telugu Association of North America (TANA) president Prasad Thotakura and executive vice-president Mohan Nannapaneni said they were closely working with the families and friends of the deceased to send the bodies to the home country.

Mr. Prasad spoke to Oklahoma City’s medical examiner, Funeral Home in Dallas and Consul General of India (Houston) and making all the arrangements to send the bodies as soon as possible. TANA is planning to have the bodies kept in Dallas, Texas, for paying homage, before transporting them to India.