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Nurse Jacintha's funeral in Karnataka at 4 pm today

December 17, 2012 11:15 IST
The body of Jacintha Saldanha, the Indian origin nurse who was found dead following a hoax call to a London hospital, will be buried at Shirva town in coastal Karnataka on Monday.

Family sources said her body will be kept in Our Lady of the Health Church at Shirva in Udupi district for two hours for the public to pay homage before the funeral service there at 4 pm.

Jacintha's body arrived in Mangalore on Sunday afternoon.

Jacintha's husband Benedict Barboza, her son Junal, 16, and daughter Lisha, 14, accompanied the coffin from London.

"As the news of her funeral has spread far and wide, we are expecting quite a big number of people to attend it," father Sandy Taura, the parish priest, said.

The Australian radio station behind a prank phone call to a London hospital that was treating Prince William's pregnant wife Kate had earlier said it had done nothing wrong and no one could have foreseen the tragic outcome.

The hoax, in which the radio hosts -- posing as Britain's Queen Elizabeth and Prince Charles despite their Australian accents -- successfully inquired after Kate's medical condition, has made worldwide headlines.

There has been renewed soul-searching over media ethics after Jacintha Saldanha, 46, the nurse who was duped by the station's call to the King Edward VII hospital, was found dead December 7 in a suspected suicide. 

Source: ANI