Eight from two families are Thane's link to Sikkim accident, missing Nepal plane

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A missing plane in the Himalayan nation of Nepal and an accident in the north-eastern state of Sikkim hogged public conversation in Thane on Sunday as eight of those involved in the two incidents are from here.

A small plane of Nepal's Tara Air went missing in the morning in the mountainous region of that country minutes after taking off from the tourist city of Pokhara.

As per officials, among those on board are Ashok Kumar Tripathi, his wife Vaibhavi Bandekar (Tripathi) and children Dhanush and Ritika, residents of Kapurbawadi here.

A burning wreckage of the aircraft has been spotted though the fate of the 22 on board is unknown, Nepalese officials said amid search operations there.

In the second incident, a car skidded off the road and fell into a ravine several hundred metres deep in Kedung Bhir in north Sikkim at around 8m on Saturday night.

Among those killed are Thane residents Suresh Punamia, Toral Punamia, Devanshi Punamia and Hiral Punamia, all from the same family, officials said.

Meanwhile, the news of the missing plane shattered 29-year-old Ashish Sawant from Diva here, as he worked as a driver for the Tripathi family for the past seven years and said his employers were kind-hearted souls.

"I had dropped them at the airport just a couple of days ago and parked their car in the building complex. This news is distressing. They had purchased a new car two months ago," he said.

The family was loving and cordial, Sunil Chalke, watchman of the building in which the Tripathis lived, told PTI.

There is just an 80-year-old woman in the Tripathis' flat in a posh high-rise on Bhiwandi Bypass Road and security guards at the complex said nothing had been revealed to her as she was frail from old age.

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