Cade Lucas
A community vigil will be held on Thursday night to acknowledge and pay tribute to the five Wyndham locals killed in the Daylesford hotel crash on Sunday.
The vigil will be held at 7.30pm on November 9 at Saltwater Reserve, Point Cook.
Access will be via Entry 2.
“The vigil will enable our community to come together and support one another at this extremely difficult time and remember the lives that were lost,” said Wyndham mayor Susan McIntyre on social media.
A vigil for the victims has already been held in Daylesford, where five members of Wyndham’s Indian community were killed when an SUV crashed into a pub beer garden on Sunday evening.
Point Cook mother Pratibha Sharma, her partner Jatin Chugh and daughter Anvi were killed in the incident, as were their friends, Vivek Bhatia and son Vihaan, of Tarneit.
Two other members of the Bhatia family, mother Ruchi and youngest son Abeer are currently recovering in hospital.
The incident has rocked Wyndham’s large Indian community which both families were active members of.
Along with being a lawyer, migration agent and former candidate for state parliament, Pratibha Sharma was also a keen volunteer, including with non-profit organisation Australian Sikh Support.
Secretary Gurjit Singh said he and other volunteers were still coming to terms with the death of Ms Sharma and her family.
“Kind of like a lot of people, we are very sad because this has happened very suddenly,” Mr Singh said.
“She was a very, very big personality. A good, kind hearted lady.”
He said Ms Sharma began volunteering with the organisation in 2020 during the first Covid lockdowns and quickly became an important contributor.
“At that time we were delivering the food packages, food boxes, grocery boxes and essential items for the peoples who were under home quarantine. She joined us and every week she was coming up with her father and daughter to the warehouse. She would help us in packaging the food boxes and she would deliver them in the Point Cook area, Tarneit area and to Truganina.”
Donations are now being provided to help the surviving members of the Bhatia family with their recovery.
A fundraising page set up to help Ruchi and Abeer Bhatia has raised nearly $70,000 in just over 24 hours, well above its original target of $50,000.
To donate visit: gofund.me/aec6071f
