Lives that were snuffed out

“After running around for two hours,we were told that Shahaban had expired at 2 am. We haven’t told his parents yet — he was the only earning member,and had sisters to marry off,” Saurabh said. The friends took the body to Shahaban’s home town on Wednesday.

Shauqat Bi (65)there for a goodbye before Haj

She was in the area to meet her nephew,who was to leave soon on a Haj pilgrimage. A resident of Pahari Chitri,Bi decided to take her nine-year-old grand-daughter Munazza along with her. It was a last-minute decision.

“My mother and my niece were in a cycle-rickshaw under the Chandni Mahal building when it collapsed. It is customary for elders to give their blessings,before the first Haj. My three cousins are going for the Haj,so my mother decided to visit them,” said Abdul Hamid,Bi’s son.

While Shauqat breathed her last at 9 pm on Tuesday,Munazza sustained serious head injuries and is recuperating in the emergency neurosurgery ward of LN Hospital.

The rickshaw-puller,who was with Bi,also sustained fractures and soft tissue injuries.

Munni Devi (70) she died watching tv

She had come to the Chandni Mahal building as a 15-year-old bride and settled in her first-floor home. “She loved watching TV. She was watching TV when the building collapsed. We went back there today,and saw the TV is still there,” said her grandson,Rohit Gupta.

Munni’s son,Suresh Gupta,sustained head injuries,while her 21-year-old grandson,Gaurav,has been operated for a femur fracture at the LN Hospital.

Munni’s body was the first to be recovered from the rubble.

Arshad Kamal (30) was just passing by

He worked as an electrician and had left his Chandni Mahal home at dawn on Tuesday,for work in Loni. The father of two boys — aged 2 and 4 — lived with his wife and children in a house behind the building that collapsed.

His family thought he was still at Loni when the building collapsed. “We had gone out to help the others. As we started removing the stones,my brother’s body was among the first few that were pulled out. I could not believe it,” his elder brother Rashid Kamal told Newsline.

The family thinks Arshad was on his way home when the building collapsed. Arshad’s wife Sambreen has been inconsolable since he was declared dead around 10 pm on Tuesday.

Tabassum (18)Fatima (70),together even in death

She was always a favourite of her 70-year-old grandmother Fatima. When Fatima’s husband passed away a month ago,she requested Tabassum’s father Akram,who works in meat shop at Sambhal in Moradabad,to send her over to Delhi.

“The two had been inseparable. Perhaps that is why God took them away together,” said Fatima’s youngest son Sajid,who was standing outside the Lok Nayak mortuary. Doctors told the family that Tabassum died about half an hour after Fatima. The two had been making rotis in the kitchen of their rented accommodation — on the fourth-floor of the building — when it collapsed.