4 yrs on, victims’ woes continue
Four years after the November 26 terror attacks, Ajmal Kasab’s hanging brought a sense of closure for some victims.
However, for some like the More family, their perfectly normal lives took a downward spiral and became an unending saga of travails and hardships.
One of the victims of the dreaded attacks was Balu Bandhu More, a constable then with the Byculla police station.
He had sustained bullet injuries on his legs. More survived the injuries but did not live even long enough to learn of Kasab’s hanging. More’s wife, Mangal Balu More said, “The call is for 26/11 I know, but my husband died two years ago. I will also tell you about the compensation and such things that media people ask me about year after year. I was paid around 5 lakhs within few months of the attack. But did that bring my husband back? Or can any amount compensate the loss of my husband?” Mangal lives with her daughter, who is a class 10 student, and her son is away for a “training” in Santa Cruz, but is still not earning. For Mangal the only source of income is the paltry pension that she receives in her husband’s name. Mangal’s chief grouse is that since her husband’s demise due to blood poisoning in 2010, no one from the police administration has even enquired about her well-being.
While the only consolation for Mangal is the compensation that the government gave them following the attacks but for some even that has eluded them.
Mumtaz Qureshi, a resident of Navada, Patna, was walking through the Chhatrapati Shivaji Terminus (CST) to catch a train to Patna when the havoc started to unfold. Qureshi suffered a bullet injury on his back and on his head due to fall.
The railway promised compensation and so did the state government. It’s the fourth year and Qureshi hasn’t received anything. He said, “After a year of running pillar to post I gave up. There are so many files lying for clearance. Who will bother about me?”
I used to live in Khopoli then, they said my relief amount would be channelled from my district, i.e. Raigadh. But when I’d go there they would ask me to go the office where the accident took place, i.e. CST. Now, I have lost all hope.”
Qureshi returned home to Khopoli after receiving treatment for 15 days, but had to eventually return to Mumbai.
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