It was a long, excruciating wait at Delhi airport

new delhi: the wait for grieving friends and relatives at the palam technical area on sunday night was long and excruciating. they sat quietly, some whispered, others wept. the group of people who waited for the iaf transport plane to bring back the bodies of victims of sunday's plane crash near mainpuri comprised a who's who of the congress, media persons and pilots. congress leader madhavrao scindia's son jyotiraditya, accompanied by congress chief sonia gandhi, had come to receive his father's body. by the time they arrived, dozens of senior congressmen had already gathered. pilot vivek gupta's uncle, ravindra aggarwal, his sister and aunt had come to receive his body. his last rites will be performed at saharanpur in uttar pradesh. his sister was sobbing with a toddler in her arms. "vivek used to live with us in mayur vihar most of the time but also had a room in south extension as his office was closer. he was only 32 years old and the eldest of three children. vivek was not married, otherwise the tragedy would have been greater," aggarwal said. vivek's father did not come to the airport as he remained at the all india institute of medical sciences. media persons and cameramen from aaj tak huddled together as they waited for the bodies of their two colleagues. for ranjan jha, it was his colleagues and friends from the india today group. jha's family decided that his body would be flown to patna, from where the bihar government would fly it to bhagalpur. cameraman gopal bisht's last rites will be conducted at noida. for indian express special correspondent, sanjiv sinha, his friends and colleagues had come to escort the body to aiims. sinha's cremation will take place in delhi on tuesday by which time his brother will arrive from ukraine. sinha's father left for delhi from dehradun on monday morning. again colleagues and friends had come to receive the body of hindustan times special correspondent anju sharma. union ministers arun jaitely and vijay goel had brought back the eight bodies. other bjp leaders present at the airport included parliamentary affairs minister pramod mahajan, information and broadcasting minister sushma swaraj and civil aviation minister shahnawaz hussain.