Breaking his silence for the first time since he returned home last Sunday, Mr Puhaindran, 37, spoke to the media about his love for his less than two-year wife. -- ST PHOTO: WANG HUI FEN
IN HER final phone call with her husband, Ms Lo Hwei Yen held her voice steady, telling Michael Puhaindran she loved him and 'please ask them (the authorities) to hurry up'.
Thirty-six hours later, her husband identified her body on the 19th floor of the Mumbai Oberoi hotel last Friday.
The 28-year-old Singaporean lawyer was taken hostage and later killed when terrorists stormed the hotel a week ago. She had gone to Mumbai on Wednesday to attend a business seminar and had just delivered a talk hours before the deadly assault which left 188 dead.
The heavily-armed militants had forced her at gunpoint to tell the Singapore diplomatic authorities to tell the Indian government not to attack them. It was a mission she could not fulfill.
Breaking his silence for the first time since he returned home with her body last Sunday, Mr Puhaindran, 37, also a lawyer, spoke to the media on Wednesday about his love for his less than two-year wife, from the first time he bumped into her in the middle of bustling Change Alley.
He knew there and then that Ms Lo was the woman he wanted to marry. He doted on her, so much so that he 'never even wanted her to get wet in the rain', and being unable to protect her was one of the hardest things he had to come to terms with.
He said his wife loved those she knew with such a passion, that even when she herself was in danger, she had made sure that they knew how much she loved them, through an email that she sent to three of her closest friends via her Blackberry.
He also recounted the series of events that began with a call she made to him the night the terrorist attacks broke out. It would be many frantic hours before he heard from her again. But he said that he was comforted that he had managed to tell her just how much he loved her, before she hung up the phone for the last time that fateful day.
'What followed next were obviously many agonising hours of trying to find out what's going on. This time the news feeds were reporting it as a terrorist attack. CNN and BBC hadn't reported anything yet but Indian news channels had live news feeds and I was following it on them.'
I was still desperately trying to call her a few times. She said she had to lie low so I didn't call her for quite a while, like half an hour or 45 minutes, but after a while I tried to call her again. The phone rang but nobody picked it up.'
'That was the situation for many hours basically, just trying to call her, just looking at what's going on TV.'
'I can't be precise about the timing, she called at 5 something in the morning. When I saw the number, I was like Oh God, does that mean she's all right? She answered. She's talking in a completely steady voice. She was extremely brave. Her voice didn't waver, even as she's being held hostage by gunmen.'
'She said they were armed with machine guns and grenades. The message you know, I am not going to go into details about what she said about the embassy again and get them to stop and what-not.'
'But the thing was that she didn't want to panic me. She was so strong, her voice was just completely unwavering in that call. In fact, she even tried to send me a message. She said there were only five terrorists. Later I understood - when I subsequently spoke to some Indian authorities - there were only two. She's probably forced to say five...when there were only two terrorists.'
'She's trying to send a message even in that call she sent to me. Needless to say, we went completely nuts trying to get people and everything else. And we managed to get MFA.'
'Subsequently, can't remember whether I called or she called. She said there was still activity again, still in a very steady voice. Still talking to me. I was reacting to her trying to remain calm as well.' 'And only in her very last sentence did she say, 'Please tell them to hurry up. And that's when I couldn't really take it and I told her I love her so very much. And she said the same thing. So at least the last words that I said to her were those words. And those were her last words.'
'And I've got one more thing to share...she did manage to get some emails out. I just like to share with you something she wrote to her friends. This one apparently came in around 6.36pm Singapore time. She wrote to three of her very good friends, Sandy, Lisa and Samantha. Her message to them was also she was being held by terrorists etc. She ended off by saying, if I don't make it out of here, I love you all.'
'Despite everything she was facing she still had the strength and courage to tell her friends that she loved them and I do want you to let people know that she was a brave Singaporean. That's how brave she was.'
Click the following links for the entire Michael Puhaindran interview: Part 1 Part 2 Part3
