Written by: Ishfaq Naseem
3 min readPanchkulaJul 25, 2013 03:19 AM IST
First published on: Jul 25, 2013 at 03:19 AM IST
His eyes were moist as he saw the rescue operations. Army personnel trudged through the gushing waters of Ghaggar river to fish out his son’s body,who he feared was dead. His son had left the house early in the morning to go out and play with his friends,but more than nine hours had passed and his body couldn’t be traced. There was little hope that this Kashmiri migrant,C N Raina,now settled in Panchkula,was nursing. His son,Samvit,was among the five youth who were feared dead.
“It has been nine hours and I don’t think he will be alive now. Samvit was born 10 years after my two daughters and he was our only hope,” Raina said.
The hope was,however,faltering and fading as rescue efforts were taking longer. Samvit left early in the morning from his house to go swim with his friends. Raina was walking through the swampy bank of the river at Burj Kotian,restless and anxious as a large number of people who had assembled watched the rescue efforts.
At Sector 25,Shubham’s father Raj Kumar Bhalla,an excise official,sat outside his house mourning. From inside the house the wails of Shubham’s mother rented the air,as his brother broke down. Around 3 pm,the family received the information about Shubham’s death. The body was kept at Kalka hospital where the family members identified it.
Ninteen-year-old Shubham had told his family members that he was going for his classes at Ambala Government Polytechnic Institute,but it was the last time he could bunk classes.
“It was his third year at the institute,where he was doing a diploma in computers. He used to travel daily to Ambala to attend college. In the morning,he left home as usual to go to college. A few hours later,we were informed that his body was fished out from Ghaggar river,” Bhalla said. The family,however,recalled that the youth would spend more time at home than with friends and was doing good in studies. “Besides the diploma at the Ambala college,he was pursuing his class XII education,” Kumar said.
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