A village in South 24-Parganas’ Kakdwip had 11 of its sons on the Coromandel Express on Friday. Three of them are confirmed dead, one is critically injured and admitted to a hospital in Cuttack and seven are still missing.
A large group from Madhusudanpur village is now camping in the crash zone, trying to locate their dear ones.
All of them were going to Chennai to work as mason or help, said the elder brother of the passenger who survived the triple-train crash at Bahanaga in Odisha’s Balasore with injuries.
“All 11 of them were going together to Chennai to work at construction sites,” said Ghulam Mortaza, elder brother of Ibrahim Sk, 32, who suffered injuries in both his hands and is being treated at the ICU of the SCB Medical College and Hospital in Cuttack.
After hearing news of the accident on Friday evening, 10 villagers from Madhusudanpur went to the crash site on Saturday. Since then, they have been desperately searching for the missing.
Till Tuesday evening, the group had been able to find one survivor, Ibrahim, and three bodies, including that of Shahnawaz Hussain Mollah, in his 20s, and Moizuddin Sk, in his early 30s.
“We were searching through the night on Saturday for our brothers, cousins, nephews and other relatives. But we could not find anyone of them,” Mortaza said over the phone from Cuttack on Tuesday.
On Sunday, family members back home at Madhusudanpur saw the picture of Ibrahim lying beside the tracks on television news.
“They called to inform us about this. We went from one hospital to another, searching for my brother and others, but there was no information,” said Mortaza. He said they even went to SCB Medical College in Cuttack, where Ibrahim was actually admitted but the hospital apparently told them there was no one by that name there.
“There was also a language barrier. We can barely speak Hindi or any other language other than Bengali. So there were miscommunications with the railway and hospital authorities,” he said.
Finally, an NGO, Jagannatah Seva Foundation, whose members had rescued Ibrahim, who was found unconscious beside the tracks, came to their help.
“The NGO contacted our family in the village and then we came to know that he was admitted to SCB Medical College and Hospital,” said Mortaza. This time, the hospital authorities confirmed that Ibrahim was undergoing treatment at the ICU.
They had to provide one unit of blood on Tuesday for Ibrahim, said Mortaza.
Ibrahim has three daughters and a wife at home.
“Doctors said he suffered critical injuries on both hands. We are not sure whether he would be able to work as a mason,” said the brother. Ibrahim and several other members of the group of 11 used to work in Kerala. This was their first trip to Chennai as they got a new contract.
Mortaza said the 10 villagers from Madhusudanpurwho were searching for the missing passengers have split into groups so they could scan multiple places simultaneously.
“Officials at the rescue camp in Balasore gave us a list of hospitals where they have sent the bodies. So, we have split into several groups and are visiting those hospitals,” said a villager who is in Odisha now.
“Four of us are with Ibrahim and sleeping outside the ICU on the floor. The rest of us are at other places and are spending nights under the open sky,” said Mortaza.
A South Eastern Railway official said that to facilitate searches, they have set up camps and several helplines. “We are urging the relatives of those missing to call the helplines,” the official said.
