The Hindu : National : Blast snuffs out breadwinners

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Sunday, May 27, 2007
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National

Blast snuffs out breadwinners

Special Correspondent

Heart-rending scenes in houses of victims

Guwahati: Twelve-year-old Nita Dey, a developmentally challenged girl, was trying to communicate in sign language with her mother Jhorna Dey, who was left speechless by the news of death of her husband in a blast in the Athgaon locality of the city on Saturday morning.

Nita's 10-year-old sister Neha, who was in her school uniform, looked confused. Nita seemed to have understood that something had gone wrong and was trying to express it but failed to get any response from her traumatised mother.

Too shocked to cry

Jhorna could not cry as she found it difficult to believe that her husband Nirmal Dey, the bread-winner of the family, would not return home anymore. "I must finish cooking lunch for him as he will come back after sometime," Jhorna was telling relatives and neighbours who broke the news.

Thirtyeight-year-old Nirmal Dey went out around 7. 30 a.m. in the auto-rickshaw he drove on hire. It was around 10.45 a.m. when a powerful blast suspected to have been triggered by the United Liberation Front of Asom (ULFA) snuffed out his life.

It was a ghastly sight with Dey's half-burnt body lying near his auto-rickshaw (No AS01-N-4924) and his severed hand thrown inside a building about 20 ft. away. Close to Dey's body was a rickshaw with its puller Md. Anwaruddin, who hailed from Bihar, stuck lifeless on his seat and his brother crying helplessly.

The scene was equally pathetic at the house of Partha Saha, a private tutor, another blast victim close by. Relatives and neighbours could not muster courage till late in the evening to break the news to his mother Putul Saha, a cardiac patient. Partha was the bread-winner in the family and was returning home when the auto-rickshaw bomb ended his life.

Minors injured

The injured included minors like Srihans, who is studying in Varanasi and had come to his uncle's house near the blast site, from his residence at Chatribari. Eyewitnesses said Sirhans suffered serious injuries on one of his arms.

Residents blamed the police for failing to prevent such blasts. They took out the body of Saha in a procession and raised slogans denouncing the militant outfit.

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