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Tearful homage to bus accident victims

Photo: Lingaraj Panda

Sombre tribute: A sand sculpture by Subal Maharana near MKCG Medical College depicting the Uttarakhand bus accident attracts many in Berhampur on Saturday. —

POLASARA (GANJAM DIST): Their hearts ached and tears swelled even as they watched on the telly the mortal remains of their kith and kin being consigned to flames some hundreds of km away from their home on the banks of the Ganga in Hardwar.

The last rites of 41 persons from Orissa who were killed when the bus in which they were travelling plunged into the Alaknanda near Bishnuprayag a couple of days ago were performed on Saturday morning. Barring two persons from Puri, the remaining victims were from Ganjam district. Thanks to the efforts of the State government, at least one member from each aggrieved family could attend the mass funeral.

State Ministers Manmohan Samal and Padmanabh Behera, Kodala MLA Niranjan Pradhan and Ganjam Collector V.K. Pandian also attended.

For the majority of those who could not make it to Hardwar for the funeral, cable television provided the vital link. The Oriya channel of ETV had taken up the task of providing footages of the funeral of their loved ones. The visuals offered some solace to persons like Krushna Chandra Tripathy of this village who lost his wife Haramani Tripathy in the accident. His eyes were glued to the television to have a glimpse of his son Sagar performing the last rites.

Special arrangements were made by the villagers to watch the process. The whole village gathered at the makeshift stage put up for the purpose. To avoid any technical snag, two television sets were put on the stage and there were generators too to provide power back-up, said Sashibhusan Patro. Similar arrangements were made in most of the villages.

There were some among the aggrieved like Bichakhyana Pradhan who wondered why most national news channels did not given much importance to the accident of this magnitude.

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