BJP leader, family, friends return home

Mysuru: It was with great relief that senior BJP leader, M V Ravishankar and his family and his four friends and their families returned from Sri Lanka to Mysuru on a flight at 3am Thursday morning.

Having spent anxious moments in Sri Lanka where a curfew was declared following the bomb blasts that claimed over 300 lives, they were able to, at last, take a flight back home Wednesday evening after being holed up in a hotel in Bentota since Sunday.

Mr  Ravishankar, his wife, Poornima,  son, Anup, and their friends, Umesh and his wife Shyla, and daughter, Mouna,  Rangnath, his wife Shalini and their sons, Vinay and Sanath,  Vedamurthy, his wife, Roopa and daughter Gauthami, and Chanbassappa had left Mysuru on April 18 and arrived in Colombo at 5.30 am  the same morning. While they were supposed to spend the first two days in Colombo, staying in a hotel 800 meters from the hotel where a bomb went off, they changed their plans and decided to visit other places first. This decision appears to have saved their lives.  

Ms Poornima Ravishankar says, “It is God’s grace that we have reached home safely.  Had we stayed in Colombo for the first two days, we would have vacated our hotel only at noon,  too late to escape the blast which was at 10.30am. We heard about it from my husband’s friend, who  called from Mysuru as our tourist guide did not tell us about it to stop us from panicking.”

The group, which was in  Kandy and Bentota at the time could not get through to Mysuru and was able to reassure those back home only late  Sunday night.  “We  watched two videos of the blasts on our fellow tourists’ mobiles and were filled with fear.  We could not get flights too and  had to wait to  come back until Wednesday evening. While all European tourists had returned to their countries,  we stayed in the hotel in Bentota, leaving it only at 10.30am Wednesday to reach Colombo by 12.30 pm. As a  national emergency was in force, there was curfew and all the establishments were closed. The police were posted everywhere. Finally, we reached the airport, and  boarded our flight at 6.45pm,” Ms Poornima recounted.