New Delhi: For Sangeeta Malik, 34, this was to be another trip with two friends, this time to the Maha Kumbh. But tragedy struck even before they could reach Prayagraj. Sangeeta and one of her friends died, while the other friend escaped with minor injuries.
Sangeeta is one of the 18 victims of Saturday night’s stampede at the New Delhi railway station (NDLS). Her family learnt of the accident through TV and social media. Since then her husband Mohit, who works in a courier company, continuously kept calling her mobile till someone answered to say she must have dropped the phone during the stampede.
From then on it was a restless wait, filled with hope, for Mohit, his parents and other relatives till they got a call from the police at 2.30 am, informing them of Sangeeta’s death.
The wait for her body proved to be longer. Till noon on Sunday, the family waited outside the Ram Manohar Lohia hospital mortuary for the procedures to be over, wondering why when everyone else’s bodies had been handed over, Sangeeta’s wasn’t. Her uncles, waiting since early Sunday morning, were impatient and did not want to talk to anyone. They spoke in low voices about how they should have never agreed to Sangeeta’s plan to go to the Maha Kumbh. But every conversation ended with the same question: Why her?
Speaking to ThePrint, Wazir, a relative, said, “She wanted to go to the Maha Kumbh with her friends. When she told the family, they all agreed. She was supposed to be travelling with two of her friends. Only one has survived the stampede with minor injuries”.
The couple, he said, lived in Delhi till two months back. “They shifted to Sonipat after Mohit’s elder brother passed away. Now Sangeeta is also gone,” Wazir rued.
Sitting beside Sangeeta’s uncles, Vinod, a neighbour, said, “She has previously gone on several trips with her friends. Everyone was going for the Maha Kumbh so she also decided to go. We thought that the worst was over after the stampede at the Sangam. Who would have thought this it would happen at the railway station?”
Also Read: Delayed trains, rumours & mismanagement—how stampede unfolded at New Delhi railway station
Families torn apart
Saturday’s stampede at NDLS destroyed many families who now seek answers and accountability on how such an incident happened in the country’s Capital.
Manoj Shah who works at a factory near the Delhi-Haryana border lost his daughter, Suruchi, 11. She was going to Prayagraj for the Maha Kumbh with her maternal grandparents, Vijay Shah and Krishna Devi, and an uncle. Only the uncle has survived.
“My brother-in-law told me there was a stampede at the station. He was panicking. All of four of them had lost contact with each other. There was chaos everywhere. By the time they were taken to the hospital, all three of them had died. Suruchi was our only daughter. My wife is in shock, she lost her parents and daughter the same day,” said Shah.
‘No space to even breathe’
Baby Kumari, 24, too was travelling to the Maha Kumbh with her aunt Sharda Devi and her cousin Khushi Kumari. While Baby Kumari died in the stampede, Khushi was under treatment at the Kalawati children’s hospital in Delhi. Baby is the youngest of seven sisters. Her father Prabhu Shah works as a BluSmart driver.
“Baby is my sister-in-law’s daughter. Three of us took an auto from Kapashera to board the train at the NDLS. We reached around 8.40 p.m. Suddenly we noticed a huge surge in the crowd at Platform 14-15. This is an administrative fault. If they would have made sure that there was enough space for movement, then today my niece would have been alive,” said Sharda, wiping the tears off her face.
Gathering the courage to say her piece, she added, “We were all stuck as one side of the stairs was blocked. People fell on each other. There was no space to breathe. It was too crowded and noisy for anyone to hear the announcements properly.”
(Edited by Sudha V.)
Also Read: In aftermath of stampede, kin of dead think back to flashes of chaos, lack of help at NDLS
Reel Minister, Mr. Ashwini Vaishnav, must resign at the earliest. He has been an absolute failure as far as the Ministry of Railways is concerned.
No Rail Minister in India has presided over so many accidents and so many deaths. Mr. Ashwini Vaishnav should be in Guiness Book of Records.