THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Kerala government will bear the expense for bringing back home the bodies of eight Malayali tourists including women and children who died in Nepal on Tuesday.

Earlier, the Indian Embassy informed the relatives of the decesed about its inability to provide financial help for transporting the bodies back to India as there was no instruction on this account from the Centre.

The chief minister’s office intervened quickly after this and offered all financial help to bring back the body. Embassy officials are holding talks with the AIR India. Around Rs 10 lakh are needed for bringing home the bodies.

Minister Kadakampally Surendran alleged that the Central government was showing gross disrespect to the bodies. “The State is ready to rush in financial help if the Cenre was not ready for it,” he added.

The post-mortem of all eight bodies is complete and they are preserved after embalming. The arrangements are being made to fly back the bodies to home town on Thursday.

Meanwhile, the External Affairs Ministry informed that it had not received any request for financial help. The post-mortem was done at Kathmandu Thribuvan university hospital.

According to sources, the flight carrying the bodies will leave Kathmandu for India at 11 am on Thursday.