Train accident: For missing persons' kin, AIIMS Bhubaneswar is last hope

For Sibari, Ashok and Nizamuddin, life has been all about hospitals, mortuaries and bodies for the last four days since their relatives went missing after the train accident in Odisha's Balasore district on June 2.

The trio was among hundreds of people trooped in to AIIMS Bhubaneswar to find their missing relatives.

Sibari Sardar of Kolkata has been frantically searching for her husband Samar, who was returning home from Chennai on the ill-fated Coromandel Express.

I searched for my husband in hospitals and morgues of Soro, Balasore, Cuttack and AIIMS Bhubaneswar, she said.

Sibari, a 35-year-old mother of a child, says she was afraid to scan the album at AIIMS Bhubaneswar containing the photograph of the deceased.

 

After mustering courage, I finally went through the it and there too I could not find my husband. I hope he is alive.

Similar is the case of Odisha's Ramamani Behera. My husband had left home without informing me 16 days ago. On June 2, he called up my nephew and told him to be at Balasore station to receive him. He was returning home in Coromandel Express, she said.

As Ramamani's nephew waited for her husband, he got information that the train had crashed. My world collapsed when I came to know that my husband was in the train. His mobile also went unanswered, she said.

The case of Mohammad Nizaqmudin from Purnia in Bihar is different. He came to AIIMS Bhubaneswar in search of his son-in-law and two grandsons. Though he got the body of his youngest grandson Samir, his son-in-law and the other grandson Nasib were missing.

Nizammudin, 70, said he visited at least half-a-dozen hospitals in Odisha and searched for them.

It is difficult to continue the search as the administration has handed me the body of my younger grandson. I have to leave home with his body. My search is incomplete as the other two are still missing, he said.

Nizamuddin, has also raised a genuine problem. The Odisha government has provided a vehicle to carry the body packed in a plastic sheet. How can I cover 600km with this open body, which has now started to stink. They could have provided a coffin, he said.

Ashok Rabi Das of Malda in West Bengal was cursing his fate as he has lost his patience searching his brother Krishna Rabi Das since Saturday.

I have visited the accident site, Balasore mortuary and hospitals in Bhubaneswar. My old parents are calling me every 10 minutes, Ashok said.

Ashok said he requested authorities to put his brother's mobile number in location search to ascertain where he or his body was located.

We have been trying our best to help people in distress. Our officials are taking people to different mortuaries and hospitals to locate their relatives, said Bhubaneswar Municipal Corporation (BMC) commissioner Vijay Amruta Kulange.