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Kenyan couple dies in Mumbai hotel fire, delayed to go back due to rescheduled flight

A fire that started on Sunday in Mumbai’s Galaxy Hotel claimed the lives of a soon-to-be-married NRI couple from India. The couple, who had lived in Nairobi, Kenya, for a while, was one of the three people killed in the tragic occurrence.

The couple, Kishan Halai, 28, and Rupal Vekaria, 25, were lodging at the hotel in Mumbai’s Santacruz district with Rupal’s mother and sister. After their trip to Nairobi was rescheduled, the airline, according to news agency PTI, arranged for their lodging.

Rupal and Kishan died in the Sunday afternoon fire that started on the hotel’s third story. Both Alpa and Manjulaben, the mother of Rupal, were injured in the incident.

The pair was from the Rampar village in the Kutch area of Gujarat’s Mandvi taluka. The sarpanch (village head) of the hamlet told news agency PTI that despite moving abroad, their families kept close ties to the village because their ancestral homes are still there.

He added that Kishan was born and reared in the village up to the time he was a teenager and his family migrated to Nairobi. Contrarily, Rupal was born in Nairobi. To attend the wedding of Kishan’s younger brother in their hometown village, the couple had travelled back to India over a month earlier.

According to the sarpanch, after the wedding, the newlyweds (Kishan’s brother and sister-in-law) and his parents went back to Kenya, while Kishan, Rupal, and her family stayed behind to go shopping and see family in Gujarat.

The sarpanch added that the pair arrived in Mumbai from Ahmedabad to catch their flight last Saturday, when they were due to leave India. However, they were given accommodations in the hotel where the fire started as a result of the flight’s rescheduling.

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