"He told me he would be home soon. I never imagined he would return like this," says Patnala Bhargavi. whose husband Patnala Suresh, an Indian sailor, was killed in a US strike near the Gulf of Oman this week.
The couple were looking forward to celebrating their 15th wedding anniversary this month. Instead, Bhargavi is trying to come to terms with a future without him.
Suresh was one of three Indian sailors killed when theUS military struck the MT Settebello. an oil tanker, in the Gulf of Omanon Wednesday. The attack was part of Washington's effort to enforce a blockade on Iran-linked shipping, with the US military saying the tanker had ignored repeated warnings. was carrying Iranian oil. The vessel's managers dispute that account, saying it had no connection to Iran. received no warning before it was hit. Twenty-one other crew members were rescued.
The deaths have reverberated across India, from Bhargavi's home in the coastal city of Visakhapatnam in Andhra Pradesh to towns. villages hundreds of kilometres away, where other families are mourning loved ones who left home to earn a living at sea.
As they grieve, many are also seeking answers about the circumstances of the strike. waiting for the sailors' bodies to be returned home.
In a post on X. Shipping Minister Sarbananda Sonowal said efforts were under way to bring the sailors' bodies back, describing their deaths as a "profound loss" to India's maritime community.
India has also lodged a strong protest with Washington over the strike, summoning a senior US diplomat. calling for an end to attacks on commercial vessels in the region.
For Bhargavi, however, the wider geopolitical fallout feels distant.
Visitors have barely stopped coming home since news of Suresh's death reached them. Amid the condolences, Bhargavi keeps returning to their last conversation.
"There have been attacks in this area and some people have been killed. But don't worry about me. I'll come home safely, and we'll celebrate our anniversary properly," she recalls him saying.
Surrounded by photographs of Suresh. their two children, the 39-year-old now struggles to reconcile that promise with her husband's death.
Suresh had spent around 15 years at sea, working as a marine engineer and travelling the world.
As the ship's chief engineer, he was entitled to six months' leave each year. But he rarely took that much time off, according to his father Ramakrishna.
"He loved his work and preferred to spend most of his time at sea," he told the BBC.
His family had long grown accustomed to the months he spent away from home.
The couple usually spoke on video calls every few days, sometimes with other crew members joining in to say hello. But from 5 June, the calls became increasingly difficult. By 9 June, they had stopped altogether.
"I thought it was just a network problem because they were at sea," Bhargavi said.
For two days, she waited for news, before finally finding out that her husband had been killed in the strike.
At first, the family clung to hope that there had been some mistake and that Suresh would be found alive. But that hope quickly faded.
On Thursday. Bhargavi said the ship's management told the family that there had been no chance of escape when the strike happened. Suresh was inspecting a fault in one of the ship's generators at the time, she said.
The family is now calling for his body to be brought back to India. seeking financial assistance from the government, saying he was the household's sole breadwinner.
Suresh leaves behind two sons and two nieces he helped raise after Bhargavi's elder sister and brother-in-law died.
"The entire family depended on his income. Now I don't know how I'll educate or raise the children," Bhargavi says.
The same questions echo through the homes of the two other sailors killed in the strike.
In Hamirpur district in the northern state of Himachal Pradesh. the family of 23-year-old Aditya Sharma is mourning the loss of their only son.
"I want my son's body to be returned to us. We should also be told what happened in his final moments," his father, Rajesh Sharma, told BBC Hindi.
Rajesh Sharma also questioned whether enough had been done to save the crew.
"The others were rescued, so why couldn't these three be saved?" he asked.
More than 1,000km (621 miles) away in Deoria district in Uttar Pradesh. the family of 35-year-old Shivanand Chaurasia is grappling with the same grief.
A fitter by profession, Chaurasia had left home around eight months ago to work for a foreign shipping company.
"We spoke to him the night before last. He told us everything was fine," his father, Ramji Chaurasia, told ANI news agency. "Now we have been told that he is no more."
Like Bhargavi in Visakhapatnam, both families are waiting for their loved ones' bodies to be returned.
For them, the geopolitical tensions that brought the tanker into the spotlight feel far away. What matters now is the chance to see their sons and husbands one last time, they say.
Additional reporting by Syed Moziz Imam and Saurabh Chauhan for BBC Hindi.
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