Labourer searches for wife, daughter at train accident site

SAINTHIA - Dhina Mirdha is illiterate, and cannot speak the local lingo. The 50-year-old seasonal labourer from Jharkhand is now running from pillar to post to know whether his wife and minor daughter - who were on the ill-fated Vananchal Express - are dead or fighting for their life in a hospital following Monday’s train accident that claimed 63 lives.

Mirdha, who resides at Ranishwar in Dumka district of Jharkhand, also sells handloom sarees to supplement his meagre income.

Three days ago, he had sent his wife Chipri, 50, and daughter Phulkumari, 9, to Ramgiri in Jharkhand to sell some handloom sarees to a relative.

“I did not go as I was busy in the fields. I instructed them that they return by the Vananchal Express, get down as Sainthia or Suri (in Birbhum district) and then take a bus to Ranishwar,” Mirdha said in his local dialect.

When his wife and daughter did not return Monday, Mirdha got tense. His anxiety increased when he learnt Monday night that the Vananchal Expres had met with an accident.

Having spent a restless night, Mirdha rushed to Suri Tuesday morning looking for the missing duo at the morgue in Suri hospital.

But not knowing the local language, the illiterate man found it difficult to ascertain how he should look for their bodies in the morgue.

Unable to make any headway in locating his wife and daughter, Mirdha came to the accident spot at Sainthia Station and asked a railway official whether they could locate their names in the list of injured.

When the officers could not locate Chipri and Phulkumari’s names in the list, a helpless Mirdha broke into tears.

“What do I do now? I don’t know anybody. I can’t understand most of what they are saying,” said Mirdha, wailing uncontrollably at the station.

Some of the officials took pity and brought Mirdha before the deputy station manager Pulak Roy.

Roy tried to console him. “I can send you to Burdwan as some of the injured are admitted at the Burdwan Medical College and Hospital. Or I can send you to Suri.”

But Mirdha was inconsolable. “Please let me know what happened to my wife and daughter. Are they alive or dead? Some local youth tell me that the body of a young girl had been taken out from the Vananchal Express. Was that my daughter?”

The railway officials and the locals had no answer, though they empathised with him.

Mirdha’s search continues.