Sikkim calamity: Search for loved ones continues

Jalpaiguri/ Alipurduar: The 68 -year-old Mannan Khan can take it no more. For the past two days he has been visiting each and every morgue in a relentless effort to trace his missing daughter.

Like Khan, there are many from Bengal whose near and dear ones have gone missing since the devastation that occurred in the Himalayan state on Wednesday.

Khan, a resident of Rajeev Nagar Colony, Darjeeling More, Siliguri, has been searching each and every vehicle arriving at the Jalpaiguri morgue. As each body arrives, he rushes to check whether it’s his daughter’s and returns each time only to sit on the roadside in front of the morgue, with a look of despair and eyes that have now gone dry. Tayaba Khatun (25), his daughter who was married in Sikkim, was swept away by the wrathful Teesta in the wee hours of Wednesday.

Since Thursday, his relentless search has commenced and is still continuing. Mannan Khan said: “A few years ago, I married my daughter Tayaba Khatun to Feroz Ansari, a resident of Rongpu on the Bengal-Sikkim border. Their house was located below the Rongpu Teesta overbridge. Nothing remains there at present. It now resembles an empty river bank with silt everywhere.”

While Tayaba’s husband and father-in-law survived, she was washed away.

“Despite extensive search, she remains untraceable. Since then, whenever I hear news of bodies being recovered, I rush along with my neighbour, Jiten Roy. I just want to catch a glimpse of my daughter,” stated Khan, while talking to Millennium Post.

Meanwhile, search ended for the Oraon family with their son returning in a coffin to Madhu Tea Garden in the Kalchini block, Alipurduar. The dead body of Bimal Oraon, an Army personnel, was brought to his house.

Bimal was among the soldiers who were swept away by the floods in Sikkim. He was stationed at an Army camp in Sikkim and his body was recovered from the Teesta River in Gajoldoba on Wednesday.

Upon receiving the news, his brother identified the body on Thursday. He was cremated with full military honours on Friday.