Kottayam: Minsa, the 4-year-old Malayali girl who died of suffocation after she was left locked in a school bus in Qatar, was laid to rest here on Wednesday.

Minsa's elder sister Meekha was inconsolable during the ceremony. She refused to return to their home in Qatar without her little sister.

The funeral took place at the family residence in Chingavanam, Kottayam. The family had visited their ancestral home two months ago. 

Minsa's mortal remains arrived in a Qatar Airways flight at Cochin International Airport by 8.45am on Wednesday. Her parents, Kochuparambil Abhilash Chacko and Soumya, accompanied the body.

The body was released to the relatives after an extensive post-mortem lasting two days. A large crowd had gathered outside the mortuary to pay tribute to the child.

Private school shut down

The Ministry of Education and Higher Education in Qatar has shut down the private nursery school which was partially responsible for the girl's death.

On Sunday, Minsa, an LKG-1 student of Springfield Kindergarten at Al Vakra in Doha, did not alight from the school bus as she had fallen asleep during the trip. The crew members locked the school bus thinking that everyone had got down from the bus.

In the afternoon, when the crew members entered the bus prior to the return trip, they saw the girl lying unconscious.

Though she was rushed to a hospital in Al Vakra, her life could not be saved. Minsa was celebrating her birthday on Sunday.

Her father Abhilash, a designer-cum-artist, has been a resident of Doha for the last many years. Meekha, Minsa's sister, is a Class 2 student of MES Indian Public School.