The daughter, center, of Divan Ayubsha Bafaisha, 65, and Divan Jubedabibi Aiyubsha, 62, an elderly couple who died in a stampede in Mina, is consoled by unidentified women inside her parent’s house in Jargal, Gujarat, India, on Sunday.

Firojsha Aiyubsha and his two brothers only found out that their parents had died in Thusrday’s stampede in Mina when a boy from their village in western India spotted the names on the Internet.

Now the siblings, all policemen, are desperately seeking information from tour operators, government helplines and their parents’ cell phones about events leading to the tragedy .

“All we have is the death notice on the Internet. Nobody has told us anything, nobody has seen their bodies,” said Firojsha, the youngest brother who lived with his parents in their crumbling home in Jargal, Gujarat. “Someone must have seen them, even if they fell. Someone must have dug them out.”

Gujarat is home to 11 of the 45 Indians known to have died in the stampede.

The passport details of Bafaisha and Jubedabibi Aiyubsha, aged 65 and 62 respectively, were posted online by the Indian Haj mission and are accurate, but their sons want to know more before performing rituals and prayers for the dead.

Bafaisha, a retired government clerk , was more keen than his wife to go on the pilgrimage, saying he wanted to carry out the sacred journey while still healthy.

Jubedabibi, a diabetes patient, had kept her sugar levels low by walking 5 km a day in the months leading up to the pilgrimage.

The couple emptied their savings accounts, paying 570,000 Indian rupees to a tour operator that was more expensive than the government-run scheme but promised better services.

They hosted meals for villagers in celebration of their journey, bought a suitcase to pack four sets of clothes and finally, at Ahmedabad airport, purchased ihraam just before they left.

“They were the only ones from our village who were going, but we were confident they would be fine,” said Firojsha.

He and his brothers blame the tour operator who arranged their parents’ trip, Madni Tours and Travels, for failing to provide enough information about the circumstances of the couple’s deaths.

Calls made by Reuters to Madni Tours and Travels on a number provided by the family went unanswered.

The one time the agent who accompanied them answered his telephone, he said he had seen 500 bodies, but not those of their parents, said Miskinsha, the eldest brother.

On another occasion, someone answered their father’s mobile, but he was speaking in Arabic and they could not understand a word. By the time the brothers got hold of the local imam, who speaks some Arabic, the phone was dead.

“I am a policeman, I deal with these things regularly. You need to give proper information to the family members in case of a tragedy,” Miskinsha said.

“We want a picture of our parents. They must have taken a video, anything, if they have been buried. We want to see their faces. We have to carry out prayers here according to our custom; how can we do it if nobody has seen their bodies?”

The government-supported Haj Committee of India, which sends the most pilgrims each year, said it was making arrangements for the victims’ next-of-kin to travel to Saudi Arabia to offer final prayers.

“We are talking to the Saudi authorities to allow the family members to travel as far as possible,” said K. Zahir Hussain, deputy chief executive officer of the Haj Committee based in Mumbai.