Jubilation in the Shah household of Asansol in anticipation of
Shakuntala's marriage turned into wails after she and three more
members were killed in the Sainthia train tragedy today. It was after Shakuntala's engagement to a distant relative that she,
her father Balram, mother Sangita and aunt Renu had boarded the
ill-fated Vananchal Express from Bhagalpur yesterday.
Twelve-year-old Ashraful Haque — his head bandaged and his left hand
cast in plaster — lay on one of the beds of the male surgical ward of
the Suri Hospital on Monday, quite perplexed. Sold off to beg, Ashraful, a victim of the train accident at Sainthia Junction
station, who said that he had been sold off by his parents, was
travelling with an unknown person in one of the general compartments of
the Ranchi-bound Vananchal Express to earn a livelihood by begging.
There was a loud crashing
sound and a jerking, after which passengers of the Uttar Banga express
fell pell-mell from their berths, injuring themselves. But what people
recall of the trauma most is the plea of the wounded and dying
passengers of the Vananchal Express, 'Please save us, we don't want to
die'. The Uttar Banga express early on Monday
rammed into three coaches of the stationary Bhagalpur-Ranchi Vananchal
Express at Sainthia in Birbhum district, 191 km from Kolkata, killing
63 people and injuring 150.
While several thousand victims of the Bhagalpur riot, now living a miserable life, are awaiting proper compensation, the Nitish Kumar Government of Bihar is spending huge public money on the one-member Bhagalpur riot enquiry panel that he set up four and half years ago. The Bhagalpur Communal Riot Judicial Enquiry Commission that Nitish formed on 26th February 2006 was given six-month time period for a report on the 1989-90 communal riot in the handloom town of Bihar.
They may have parted company with
former Union minister of state Digvijay Singh amidst a lot of acrimony,
but both Janata Dal (U) president Sharad Yadav and Bihar Chief Minister
Nitish Kumar are inclined to give the party ticket to his widow Putul
Kumari in the Lok Sabha by-election from the Banka constituency.
