About 2,000 mourners packed a church in India yesterday for the funeral of a nurse found hanged after taking a royal hoax call, as her family said they had nearly lost the strength to grieve.
Indian-born Jacintha Saldanha, 46, apparently committed suicide after answering the call from Australian radio hosts to the London hospital where the pregnant wife of Prince William was admitted with acute morning sickness.
“The events of the last week have shattered our lives and we barely have any strength to grieve,” widower Benedict Barboza and the couple’s two children said in a statement read by a family friend after the funeral.
“The incidents leading to this tragedy are being investigated by the London Metropolitan Police and they have assured us of a full and fair investigation.”
Barboza and the couple’s son, Junal, 16, and daughter, Lisha, 14, were joined by relatives and local residents for the Catholic service in the southwestern state of Karnataka.
Saldanha’s coffin, covered with flowers and with a photographic portrait on top, was carried out of the Our Lady of the Health church in Shirva, 50 kilometres from Mangalore city, for burial in the cemetery.
“Benedict has become a widower and her children are motherless. Let us pray for her soul,” Ronald Saldanha, a relative of the family, said in the address delivered beneath stained-glass windows and spinning fans.
Before the ceremony, Saldanha’s coffin was taken to her mother-in-law’s house where female mourners chanted and sang commemorative songs.
“This is a sad moment. Nothing else, just grief,” M. Menezes, a computer professional on Christmas leave from his job in the Gulf, told AFP after paying his final respects.
Family members in the town were unwilling to speak to reporters after a week of intense media scrutiny following the news of her death. Television crews jostled to film the service through the main door of the church and to get footage of the burial as large crowds gathered behind ropes to watch the coffin being lowered into the ground.
Barboza hugged his son and daughter at the graveside as the burial rites were concluded and a brass band played a final hymn. Afterwards he declined to comment on reports that Saldanha had felt under pressure from the King Edward VII private hospital after the hoax call or that she had been in a separate dispute with colleagues.
The grave was marked with a simple black-and-white cross bearing Saldanha’s name and dates of her birth and death.
Shirva is Barboza’s home town while several of Saldanha’s relatives, including her frail mother, live in the port city of Mangalore.