Parents of worker killed in train mishap were on pilgrimage when news hit

SINGAPORE — If not for the fact that he had just started work at SMRT, Muhammad Asyraf Ahmad Buhari would have been in Mecca this week for a pilgrimage with his parents.

Speaking to TODAY after the funeral service attended by hundreds of his son’s friends, Mr Ahmad Buhari Ali said he last communicated with his son via a text message at 12.59am on Friday, in which the 24-year-old wrote: “Goodbye Baba.”

Asyraf and his SMRT colleague, Nasrulhudin Najumudin, 26, who were run over by a train on Tuesday, were buried yesterday at the Choa Chu Kang Muslim Cemetery.

Hundreds of relatives and friends were present to pay their respects both at the respective homes of the deceased and at the burial grounds. They included Minister-in-charge of Muslim Affairs Dr Yaacob Ibrahim and Transport Minister Khaw Boon Wan.

Mr Buhari, who had left for the holy city in Saudi Arabia on Thursday last week, started receiving unconfirmed messages about his son’s fatal accident on a track near Pasir Ris MRT station while he was doing his pilgrimage rituals on Monday (Mecca time).

Mr Buhari, who returned to Singapore yesterday afternoon, said: “At that time, my wife felt something — mother’s instincts ... (But) we did not expect that something like this, a death, would happen.”

“We thought differently. When we returned to the hotel, someone left me a message. It was the wrong (message). The news was that his cousin had passed on.”

His eldest son, who had received the news of Asyraf’s death from an MRT office on Tuesday, had called Mr Buhari but could not break the news to his father. It was Mr Buhari’s friend who told him about the tragedy.

His wife, Madam Rosmawati, collapsed on the spot in the hotel when told about their son’s death.

Mr Buhari, who said he was taken aback by the turnout for his son’s funeral, said: “I don’t want anything, I just want your prayers. Even when the ministers came, (I told them that) I didn’t want anything, I just want your prayers for the both of them, not just my son.”

Mr Nasri Najumudin, Mr Nasrulhudin’s eldest brother, thanked the well-wishers for their prayers and condolences. “Things have happened, we just have to wait for the full report,” he said. “For now, we cannot say anything. For now, we just have to accept.”