New Delhi: The grief is raw and unrelenting for the families of those killed in the powerful explosion near Delhi’s Red Fort on Monday evening, which claimed at least 12 lives and left more than 20 injured.
Among the dead was 35-year-old e-rickshaw driver Mohammad Jumman, the sole breadwinner of his family. His sister Najma said, “Only his torso was recovered... we identified him by the clothes he was wearing that day.” She added that Jumman’s GPS-enabled rickshaw had last been tracked near Red Fort, prompting the family to rush to the site. “There was no head, no hands, no feet. We identified his torso through the clothes on it,” she said, her voice breaking.
Jumman has left behind his mother, a differently abled wife and three young children. “Who will look after them? My sister-in-law cannot even go out to work. His children are so young. We have not heard anything from the government. They should take care of the education of his children,” Najma appealed.
According to the police, eight of the 12 deceased have been identified so far — Amar Kataria (35), Mohammad Jumman (35), Ashok Kumar (34), Mohsin Malik (35), Dinesh Kumar Mishra (35), Lokesh Kumar Agrawal (52), Pankaj Saini (23) and Mohammad Nauman (19). “A total of eight bodies have been identified, while the remaining four have been preserved for DNA testing,” a senior police officer said, adding that the bodies will be handed over after confirmation of the test results. In Kalkaji, the family of Amar Kataria — who ran a small medicine shop — is still struggling to come to terms with his loss. “Amar was our only son. He had called us 10 minutes before the blast, saying he was on his way home,” said his father, Jagdish Kataria. “Later, a woman answered his phone and told us she had found it near Red Fort where a blast had happened.” The family waited through the night at LNJP Hospital and received his body early on Tuesday.