Slain clerk Dangol’s widow, Kalpana, broke down and wept in the arms of one of the Nepali women who were at Logan International Airport to receive her. As she sobbed, a half-dozen state police quickly formed a circle around Kalpana, her daughter and their supporters and walked them to an elevator, away from a group of reporters and cameramen.
Kalpana and the couple’s 9-year-old daughter, Sanila, had hoped one day soon to join Dangol for a new life in America. Instead, they are in Boston for his funeral, after his murder Dec 26 at the hands of a heartless thug disguised with a wig in a Jamaica Plain Tedeschi’s.
“It’s been a very sad time for all the Nepalese here, and we’re sharing their grief,” Utsab Gurung, president of the Greater Boston Nepali Community, told the Herald earlier in the evening.
Funeral details had not been finalized, Gurung said. But the plan so far is for a funeral service led by a Hindu holy man tomorrow or Monday. Dangol’s remains will be cremated.
The brave clerk’s ashes will return with his wife and daughter to Nepal, where they’ll be scattered in the Bagmati river, a sacred Hindu site, Gurung said.
Dangol’s widow will stay in Somerville with her relatives during the visit, Gurung said.
At the time of his murder, Surendra was seeking US citizenship, Gurung said, and his wife and child were applying for immigration visas. Living in the United States was his dream, Gurung said, but he doesn’t know whether Dangol’s widow and child would want to remain here after the funeral.
Dangol, 39, was at the counter of the Tedeschi’s on Center Street in Jamaica Plan at about 3 p.m. Dec. 26 when a light-skinned man wearing a woman’s wig and toting a gun robbed the store. He then shot Dangol.
Boston police are asking for help finding the killer, who fled in a white Dodge Acclaim. Tedeschi’s has put up a $25,000 reward for the killer’s capture.
Dangol’s wife, brother Birendra and child arrived after a harrowing bureaucratic delay, when State Department officials blocked Sanila from getting a visa. But US Rep Michael Capuano’s intervention helped secure the girl a visa.
Now, local Nepalis are trying to raise money to help offset the cost for Dangol’s funeral and his family’s trip here.
Gurung asked those interested to go to www.GBNC.org for more information about how to donate.
“We’re raising what we can to help them,” Gurung said.
Related story
Food crisis looms large as drought hits Madhesh districts
