UAE-based entrepreneur Shamsheer Vayalil has expressed sorrow over the death of four medical students in last week’s Air India plane crash in Ahmedabad and pledged ₹6 crore to support their families and others affected by the tragedy.

In a post on X, Dr. Vayalil, founder and chairman of VPS Healthcare, a multinational healthcare group, mourned the loss of the students — Manav, Aaryan, Rakesh, and Jaiprakash — describing them as “future frontline heroes.”

“Manav, Aaryan, Rakesh, and Jaiprakash were preparing to save lives, not lose their own. The AI-171 crash took them from us. Pledging ₹6 crore to support their families and others affected,” he wrote and shared their photos.

Air India disaster: Eleven planes that crashed after take-off in the past and the reasons behind

Calling the gesture personal, Dr. Vayalil, son-in-law of M.A. Yusuff Ali, owner of LuLu Group International, a retail conglomerate, added that the visuals of the students reminded him of his own days in medical hostels. “Having lived in medical hostels, the images felt painfully familiar. This gesture is personal. It stands with the students who never got to serve, and with the families now carrying their memories forward,” he wrote.