rediff.com: Mourning relatives take back their departed

As a light drizzle descended on the drooping shoulders of mourning relatives at Gate Six of the Netaji airport in Calcutta, the stricken cry of Rumni Sen rent the surrounding darkness.

Rumni's father, Bikash Sen, had boarded the doomed Alliance Air's CD-7412 flight for Patna on Monday, never to return. ''This is my worst nightmare. I never imagined that I will have to come here some day to identify my father's body.''

As sorrowing relatives comforted her gently, Rumi sobbed, ''Please God, let no one ever suffer as I am doing.''

Friends and relatives of young Sourav Dutta were equally inconsolable. Standing downcast near a waiting hearse, one of them said, ''I wonder why such a promising life had to be snuffed out so early ... why, why?'' the man trailed off.

Relatives of Rajat Dutta, however, are destined to suffer another long wait till the dispute over claims over his body are settled. More than one person has laid claim to his remains.

Though Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee, who went to Patna to bring back the bodies of the 12 victims from Calcutta, has requested the Bihar chief minister and chief secretary to do whatever necessary to have the body released, this is little consolation to his relatives.

''This can't be true. He attended my birthday party on Sunday. Why did this have to happen to him?'' wept Dutta's niece Rai. Dutta's elder sister Mallika Roy, a cardiac patient, is in a state of shock.

As flight CD 7411 touched down at the airport at 0105 hours, cries of grief, pain and anguish arose from relatives and friends keeping vigil at Gate Six. Twelve coffins containing bodies of the victims were lowered slowly on waiting trolleys as reporters and cameramen jostled with relatives and airport staff for vantage position.

The first coffin containing the body of Cabin Attendant S Newar, was handed over around 0130 hours to his heavyhearted relatives. One by one, the coffins tagged with the names of B R Sen, S Krishnamurti, Goutam Roy, Karan Pathak, Major General S C Gupta, B Mukherjee, D Dutta, Sourav Dutta, Ajoy Kapoor, R Mukherjee and Sandip Dey were taken to the fleet of hearses.

As most of the hearses drove off, the wife of Sandip Dey, who had accompanied her husband's body from Patna, looked in despair for someone to receive her. Moved by her distress, Banerjee intervened to locate the widow's brother and arranged for a vehicle to take the body to the Deys's Salt Lake home.

''I have not seen anything like this in my career. I don't want to see it again,'' said T Roy, an Airports Authority of India employee.


	HOME \| NEWS \| PTI \| REPORT