Keep Malaysia under scrutiny, husband of MH370 passenger tells world leaders

KUALA LUMPUR, May 16 ― The husband of an MH370 passenger has demanded that the governments of all countries with citizens on board the plane ramp up pressure on Malaysia to find the jetliner that has been missing for 70 days now.

Indian national Pralhad Shirsath, whose wife Kranti Shirsath was on board the Malaysia Airlines aircraft, picked apart Malaysia's efforts so far in the hunt, even suggesting the possibility that local investigators had aided the plane's hijackers, if there had been any.

He pointed out that it had taken Malaysia all of four hours to scramble together a search mission after MH370 disappeared on the morning of March 8, instead of acting immediately.

This, he said in a letter addressed to world leaders here, indicated that, “the Malaysian government has provided a safe passage and an opportunity to those who diverted the plane to take it to the planned destination”.

Malaysian leaders have repeatedly defended its response time in the search for MH370, insisting that it has given its all for what experts have described as the most baffling mysteries in aviation history.

In an opinion piece on the Wall Street Journal earlier this week, Prime Minister Datuk Seri Najib Razak had acknowledged that Malaysia took four hours to get a search mission together but pointed out that MH370 disappeared when it was somewhere Malaysian and Vietnamese airspace.

This caused “maximum confusion”, the prime minister wrote.

Nevertheless, Najib added, Malaysia’s search for the plane was launched about one-third quicker than in the 2009 crash of the Air France Flight 447.

Pralhad, however, demanded to know why no country has really come out to question this alleged oversight by the Malaysian authorities.

He drew links between the four-hour response time and remarks by Najib himself during the early stages of investigation that the Beijing-bound aircraft had been piloted off course through deliberate action of someone on board.

“Unfortunately, none of you has questioned this? None of the countries, whose nationals were on board, has demanded transparent and speedy action from the Malaysian government.

“But on the contrary you are continuing to support the Malaysian government for sharing contradictory and confusing information, delayed communication, misleading the search and rescue operation and not taking timely action to save the plane and its passengers.

“This is absurd and irresponsible,” Pralhad, a father of two, wrote.

He lamented that it was not compensation that the bereaved families of those aboard the missing jetliner want, but the truth and some form of closure.

It is “totally inappropriate”, he said, to force these families to believe that their loved ones are lost when there has been no shred of evidence to prove this to be true.

“This is a modern and civilised era, where we talk about rights and justice and enjoyment of all rights by all people,” he wrote.

“I am a citizen of India. ‘Truth alone triumphs’ is written on our emblem. I want the truth of what happened to my wife and to the flight MH370,” he said.

Since the aircraft's disappearance, Pralhad said his dreams were dashed, along with his career and his family life. He now has to play the roles of both father and mother to his two sons, apart from having to quit his job, he said.

“I urge you to request the Malaysian authorities for a speedy, transparent and trustworthy investigation,” he said, referring to the governments of countries with nationals on board.

“I desperately want the truth about where my wife is, what has happened to her and all the passengers and what caused the plane to disappear.”

Malaysia Airlines flight MH370 disappeared some 120 nautical miles off the coast of Kota Baru, Kelantan, less than an hour after it left the Kuala Lumpur International Airport (KLIA) at 12.41am on March 8.

The wide-body Beijing-bound Boeing 777 aircraft was carrying 239 people from 14 countries on board, including 12 Malaysian crew members.

Search for the missing plane has now gone entirely underwater and is still concentrated in the southern Indian Ocean where experts believed it had gone down through detailed analyses of radar and satellite data.