'I will come home safely': Indian sailor's last words to wife before a US strike killed him

"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 the US military struck the MT Settebello, an oil tanker, in the Gulf of Oman on 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 and was carrying Iranian oil. The vessel's managers dispute that account, saying it had no connection to Iran and 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 and 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 and 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 and calling for an end to attacks on commercial vessels in the region.For Bhargavi, however, the wider geopolitical fallout feels distant.