Abraham Raji & Debian, DebConf kayak death: search abandoned, evading liability
Reprinted with permission from Daniel Pocock.
News has appeared about the death of a volunteer, Abraham Raji, at DebConf23 in Kochi, India.
There is a more complete report published by The Hindu. The key point to note is that the official search was abandoned and it was local residents who found the body. The report doesn't mention whether anybody from Debian stayed to help the local people search after the fire and rescue teams went home at sunset.
The location was the Nihara Resort & Spa in Pizhala.
However, local residents continued the search. The body was eventually recovered around 8.45pm. The Varapuzha police registered a case.
People claim that Debian is a family. If a member of your family disappeared in the water like this, would you just go home or would you continue the search with the local people?
In my previous blog, I looked at how Debian and DebConf have been systematically plotting to avoid liability for years.
We can see more hints about these practices in the organization of DebConf23 in India. Looking at the contact page of the web site, there is no information about the name and registered address of the company responsible for DebConf.
If we look really hard we can find more details on the visa page. People who had to apply for a visa were told to put the name of the venue, InfoPark Kochi, as the organizer. Nobody from Debian India or Software in the Public Interest was willing to put their name as a sponsor for visas.
The DebConf wiki registration page for the day trip has a list of people who attended the kayak excursion with Abraham Raji.
Raju Devidas Utkarsh Gupta Alan Alexander Thomas Aravinth Manivannan Carl Karsten Weezel Andreas Tille Surbhi Rawat Vikas Maurya R S Madhavan Akhil Varkey Nilesh Patra Arun Kumar Pariyar Nisha Pariyar Rhishi Nand Hector Oron Martinez Joe Steeve Senthil Kumaran Ramshad Rahman Akash A Viswanatha Kartha V Shone Binu abraham Jaidon Gill
A photo from the Nihara Resort web site.
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