The body of techie Gogineni Nagarjuna, who drowned at a waterfall in the United States earlier this week, reached his native village of Gottumukkala in Kanchikacherla mandal in Andhra Pradesh's Krishna district on Sunday.
A pall of gloom descended on the village as Nagarjuna was also the third son of former TDP leader Gogineni Venkata Rao, who had passed away seven years ago.
Visuals showed several members of his family seated by his casket, wailing about his unfortunate demise. A few TDP leaders are also learnt to have visited the family and extended their condolences.
Former state Home Minister Vasantha Nageswara Rao, who said he was close to Gogineni Venkata Rao during the latter’s career in politics, also expressed his grief at Nagarjuna's death and assured the family of his support.
The techie's last rites were performed by the family later on Sunday.
Nagarjuna had completed his graduation in Vijayawada and moved to the US for further studies in 2008 and later settled there after getting a job at an MNC.
On July 1, Nagarjuna went out with his friends to Winston waterfalls, near Charlotte city in North Carolina.
He is learnt to have drowned as he was navigating through the water and he slipped on a stone.
The body was brought back with the help of the Telugu community in the US and Nagarjuna’s friends, who raised funds online.
The fundraising campaign on GoFundMe managed to raise $60,189 of the $50,000 goal within a matter of 6 days.
The Telugu Association of North America (TANA) also promoted the fund campaign through their Facebook page and had said that efforts were being made to hand over Nagarjuna’s body to his family members as soon as possible.
After learning about the demise of Nagarjuna, Nandigama MLA T Soumya also visited the family and consoled them.