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<TABLE cellSpacing=0 cellPadding=0 width="100%" border=0><TBODY><TR>Tragic end on the 17th floor
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Lo Hwei Yen, Singapore's first victim of terror, was shot in the head and abdomen </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Ravi Velloor and P. Jayaram
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10>
</TD><TD vAlign=bottom>
PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE LO FAMILY
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->
Mumbai - For Ms Lo Hwei Yen, the journey home to Singapore began from a funeral parlour in Mumbai's Clare Street.
Yesterday, John Pinto International Services placed the body in a metal-lined coffin in preparation for the Singapore Airlines flight at midnight.
According to Mr Pinto, family members had instructed him to make sure she looked 'as normal as possible' in death.
There was, of course, nothing normal about the final hours of life of this 28-year-old lawyer, who became Singapore's first terrorism fatality.
Before arriving at the funeral parlour, Ms Lo's body had rested overnight in the mortuary of Mumbai's JJ Hospital in Byculla, where more than 80 of the nearly 200 dead in last week's terror attack on the city were taken to.
With so many dead, the inside of the mortuary was like a scene from a nightmare. Bodies were strewn about. Some were washed down with water to keep them from deteriorating too rapidly.
The smell of formaldehyde was everywhere.
Victims were reduced to being a number.
In Ms Lo's case that statistic was 791/125, according to the mortuary's record, which listed her as 'belonging' to the Marine Drive Police Station.
Before we enter the cold room, a policeman helpfully gives us surgical masks and inquires: 'Are you sure you will be able to withstand what you are about to see?'
We enter, but do not stay long. We see the body of a huge man on the floor, his face soot-black from the explosion that probably killed him. He was one of the Israelis who got trapped in Nariman House.
Other bodies are nearby, a few still oozing blood. Some have faces smashed beyond recognition.
We are pointed to a slender, lifeless form in a corner of the room - Ms Lo. Without exchanging a word, we decide not to go further.
As we head back towards the door, there comes another shock.
The same cold room is also where police have brought the bodies of four of the terrorists. All of them look like they are in their early 20s.
Outside, we walk across to the duty doctors' room. The senior among them asks what our business is.
We ask to see the medical report on the Singaporean.
There is some rummaging of papers and instructions to an underling. The official runs a pencil down a list of names written in Hindi. It is there.
Cause of death: 'Fracture of skull with abdominal injury. Firearm injury.'
There is no way of confirming the exact cause of death. But a trip across town to The Oberoi Trident, where Ms Lo died, yields a plausible story.
Entering the hotel after talking our way through two rings of security set up by police and hotel guards, we sit in the lobby watching the scene of destruction, now rapidly disappearing as repairmen hasten to set the place right.
There are bullet holes in the glass panels along the stairs that lead up to the Kandahar Restaurant. There, Ms Lo was said to have been dining with friends when two gunmen burst into the lobby below and shot their way up.
A senior hotel executive gives us this version of events. When the terrorists blasted in, he says, many ran for cover, scurrying through kitchens and using a narrow staircase to make their way to the rooftop. From there, some guests came down a few floors.
Ms Lo was captured. Initially, the terrorists said they did not intend to harm women. This was the reason she was allowed, or managed, to make some contact with her family.
But later, the hotel executive says, they changed their mind, probably when security forces entered the building. They executed every hostage they could get.
'We found her in the corridor on the 17th floor and there were two other dead women on the same level,' the executive says.
Could she have died from friendly fire?
'No chance,' he says.
'She was shot through the head.'
[email protected] .
[email protected]
</TR><!-- headline one : end --><TR>Lo Hwei Yen, Singapore's first victim of terror, was shot in the head and abdomen </TR><!-- Author --><TR><TD class="padlrt8 georgia11 darkgrey bold" colSpan=2>By Ravi Velloor and P. Jayaram
</TD></TR><!-- show image if available --><TR vAlign=bottom><TD width=330>
</TD><TD width=10>
PHOTO: COURTESY OF THE LO FAMILY
</TD></TR></TBODY></TABLE>
<!-- START OF : div id="storytext"--><!-- more than 4 paragraphs -->
Mumbai - For Ms Lo Hwei Yen, the journey home to Singapore began from a funeral parlour in Mumbai's Clare Street.
Yesterday, John Pinto International Services placed the body in a metal-lined coffin in preparation for the Singapore Airlines flight at midnight.
According to Mr Pinto, family members had instructed him to make sure she looked 'as normal as possible' in death.
There was, of course, nothing normal about the final hours of life of this 28-year-old lawyer, who became Singapore's first terrorism fatality.
Before arriving at the funeral parlour, Ms Lo's body had rested overnight in the mortuary of Mumbai's JJ Hospital in Byculla, where more than 80 of the nearly 200 dead in last week's terror attack on the city were taken to.
With so many dead, the inside of the mortuary was like a scene from a nightmare. Bodies were strewn about. Some were washed down with water to keep them from deteriorating too rapidly.
The smell of formaldehyde was everywhere.
Victims were reduced to being a number.
In Ms Lo's case that statistic was 791/125, according to the mortuary's record, which listed her as 'belonging' to the Marine Drive Police Station.
Before we enter the cold room, a policeman helpfully gives us surgical masks and inquires: 'Are you sure you will be able to withstand what you are about to see?'
We enter, but do not stay long. We see the body of a huge man on the floor, his face soot-black from the explosion that probably killed him. He was one of the Israelis who got trapped in Nariman House.
Other bodies are nearby, a few still oozing blood. Some have faces smashed beyond recognition.
We are pointed to a slender, lifeless form in a corner of the room - Ms Lo. Without exchanging a word, we decide not to go further.
As we head back towards the door, there comes another shock.
The same cold room is also where police have brought the bodies of four of the terrorists. All of them look like they are in their early 20s.
Outside, we walk across to the duty doctors' room. The senior among them asks what our business is.
We ask to see the medical report on the Singaporean.
There is some rummaging of papers and instructions to an underling. The official runs a pencil down a list of names written in Hindi. It is there.
Cause of death: 'Fracture of skull with abdominal injury. Firearm injury.'
There is no way of confirming the exact cause of death. But a trip across town to The Oberoi Trident, where Ms Lo died, yields a plausible story.
Entering the hotel after talking our way through two rings of security set up by police and hotel guards, we sit in the lobby watching the scene of destruction, now rapidly disappearing as repairmen hasten to set the place right.
There are bullet holes in the glass panels along the stairs that lead up to the Kandahar Restaurant. There, Ms Lo was said to have been dining with friends when two gunmen burst into the lobby below and shot their way up.
A senior hotel executive gives us this version of events. When the terrorists blasted in, he says, many ran for cover, scurrying through kitchens and using a narrow staircase to make their way to the rooftop. From there, some guests came down a few floors.
Ms Lo was captured. Initially, the terrorists said they did not intend to harm women. This was the reason she was allowed, or managed, to make some contact with her family.
But later, the hotel executive says, they changed their mind, probably when security forces entered the building. They executed every hostage they could get.
'We found her in the corridor on the 17th floor and there were two other dead women on the same level,' the executive says.
Could she have died from friendly fire?
'No chance,' he says.
'She was shot through the head.'
[email protected] .
[email protected]
