‘Aap jaante hain mere laadle ko… Kab dikhega’: Grieving mother after Thar crash in Gurgaon claims five young lives

Waiting inside the Sector 40 police station, his father, Yudhvir Singh, broke down.

“Meri parso hi usse baat hui thi. Keh raha tha ghar ki hone vali laado k liye phool aur kapde kharidne hain (I spoke to him just the day before; he was saying how he has to buy clothes and flowers for his bride to be).”

“He worked in Samsung as a software engineer and was living in Greater Noida,” Yudhvir said. The family lives in Mohana village in Sonepat. Yudhvir is a farmer, and was helped on the field by his older son, Govind.

Gautam (31) worked in Samsung as a software engineer. (Express Photo)

Govind recalled his last conversation with Gautam on Friday. “He was asking me about the arrangements, and I told him everything would be taken care of,” he wept. “His wedding was fixed for November 2. And now he is gone.”

Nearby, his uncle and cousins stood silently, consoling Govind as they took turns speaking with the police.

In the peak afternoon sun on Saturday, families of the victims began trickling in, stopping briefly to see the mangled remains of the Thar parked outside.

Gautam was the eldest among those in the car. Police said he had been the one to connect the other five — Pratishtha Mishra (25); Aditya Pratap Singh (24); Aditi Soni alias Jyoti (21), Lavanya (26) and Kapil Sharma (28).

Aditi with her mother. (Source: Express Photo)

Aditi was the youngest in the group. Her parents said Gautam was a good friend of their daughter’s and had encouraged her to enroll for a digital marketing course in Noida, which led her to move there.

“She usually does not go out late like this. Why did she have to? Now we have lost her… she was my only girl,” her mother, Kiran, grieved.

Sitting on a chair outside the station’s entryway, she said, “Kal hi video call pe baat hui thi, ussne pucha tha ki ghar aa jau, maine bola ki mann nahi lagra toh abhi vapas aaja. Meri bacchi vapas hi nahi aa payi (Just yesterday we spoke on video call, she had asked if she could come home, I said come back if your heart isn’t into the course. She never came back).”
Jyoti’s father Rakesh Kumar, a goldsmith, and younger brother, Varun (19), said she was a second-year BA student at Delhi University’s Ramanujan College. “We got the news from her roommate’s mother, who called us up in the morning,” said Varun.

Father and son said Aditi’s body was barely recognisable when the police showed them her picture. “I could tell it was her from an old scar on her head. Kuch nahi bacha hain (nothing was left),” Rakesh said.

Aditya was a software engineer, said his parents.

His mother, who arrived with her siblings from Agra, was in a state of shock.

“Aap jaante hain mere laadle ko? Kahan hain? Kab dikhega (Do you know my dear boy? Where is he? When will I get to him?),” she demanded.

The family had not told her that Aditya was gone.

Gautam’s dad (on the right) at Sector 40 police station in Gurgaon. (Express Photo)

“He studied engineering at Galgotias University (Greater Noida) and has been working in Noida thereafter. We have not been able to tell our sister yet,” Adtiya’s maternal uncle said.

Lavanya and Pratishtha were friends; they were in their second-year at Lloyd Law College in Greater Noida. Lavanya’s father is an ITBP Inspector currently posted at Sikkim, while Pratishtha is the daughter of a civil judge in Raebareli.

Pratishtha’s sister, sister-in-law, cousins and uncles were at the station. “Writing about her now will not change what happened right?” her sister said.

The families left for the mortuary around 4 pm with the police.