A young man from Hyderabad died in the United States after a hit-and-run accident in North Carolina state in the early hours of May 11. The man, identified as 25-year-old Gongalla Sahith Reddy, was pursuing his higher education and had moved to the US around two-and-a-half years ago.
He was reported to have been looking for a job. He was returning from the gym at around 4 am when the accident took place. When Sahith did not contact his family for a day, they reached out to his friends, who in turn, reached out to the police.
“As he was not carrying any identity document on him, the authorities there could not contact his family or friends. It was only after friends of Sahith approached the authorities there that they came to know about his death in a road accident,” Sahith’s father Madhusudhan Reddy, a former BHEL employee, was quoted as saying. His family stays in Musheerabad in Hyderabad.
The deceased's family then approached the NRI cell in Telangana's General Administration Department, which is now coordinating with the Indian Embassy in the US, to bring back Sahith's body. It is expected to reach Hyderabad in a few days.
Sahith's friends and family are also crowdfunding to help bring his mortal remains back to India.
"The fund will be used to support the travel of mortal remains of Sahith and his family's travel to India. And also to further support the family," the fundraiser on GoFundMe, which has raised close to $18,000, stated.
According to media reports, Musheerabad MLA Muta Gopal also requested Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) Working President KT Rama Rao to expedite the process of getting Sahith’s body back from North Carolina.
In March this year, a man from Telangana who was pursuing an orthodontics course in the United States, was killed in a multi-vehicle crash in Chicago on the Veterans Memorial Tollway. The deceased was identified as 32-year-old Arshad Mohammed, who hailed from Vikarabad. He was reported to be pursuing an advanced medical course at the University of Illinois and was staying with his sister at Bloomingdale.