Brother who helped with Math homework, world’s ‘best husband’: Kin of Red Fort blast victims left picking the pieces

Pankaj Kumar Sahni and Jumman Khan were among the 10 people who were killed in the explosion outside Red Fort on November 10 evening. It’s been five days – and the families are struggling to pick up the pieces of their shattered lives in the void that the two men have left behind.

The protective brother

Twenty-three-year-old Pankaj kept a diary – or rather, a register of his thoughts. And English translations of Hindi words. On Saturday, that register lay in a corner of his bed.

“Injustice: anyaay”, “Goal: lakshya.” “Do you know of any good gym around?” “I’m Pankaj Kumar Sahni.” “Isn’t the park beautiful?”

There are ingredients of a ‘75-day challenge’ that Pankaj was perhaps thinking of taking up, beginning with having five litres of water every day.

And then, stuck between the pages of the register, there is a copy of his resume.

Pankaj, a sports enthusiast, got an A1 in physical education in Class 12. He left school to work after his father, who suffers from severe asthma, could no longer support the family on his own.

Pankaj drove an app-based cab, and had taken the day off on Monday. But he left home after a neighbour requested a drop to Old Delhi railway station. He was at the traffic signal outside Red Fort on his way back home when the blast took place.

“He told me to serve him rice, and that he would be back soon,” sobs his mother Gayatri Devi, her face covered with a shawl, held tightly by a neighbour.

“He would write in his register whenever he had the time. He used to tell me “padh le, tujhe ghar baith ke khaana nahi banana hai. Mujhe maths padhate the (Study, you can’t expect to sit at home and cook. He used to teach me maths),” says Deepa, Pankaj’s sister, who studies in Class 10.

The family belongs to Samastipur in Bihar, but has now lived in Delhi for long. “I brought him with me when he was seven years old. He was small enough to fit in my arms when I drove an autorickshaw then,” says his father, Ram Balak Sahni.

Sitting on the bed in which Pankaj slept, the family is wondering how they would manage their lives without him. “I have to pay Rs 90,000 for Pankaj’s car, which was completely burnt. I had to borrow money even to perform his last rites,” says Ram Balak.

“He took care of all our needs. Yesterday we found Rs 2,000 that bhaiya had kept inside his register. When he returned home, all four of us would sit on his bed and play carrom. He was the closest to me and I would tell him everything,” says Deepa, the oldest of Pankaj’s three siblings.

The world’s best husband

Thirty-two-year-old Tanuja sits with a blue shawl pulled up to her face, surrounded by women of her extended family. She is observing iddat, the period of mourning for a Muslim woman whose husband has died.

Jumman (35), drove an e-rickshaw in the area around Chandni Chowk. The blast blew off his limbs, leaving behind only the torso.

“He was wearing the blue jersey that I had gifted him on New Year’s last year,” says Tanuja.

Next to her, the couple’s two small girls, who study in Class 4 and 5, are fighting over a packet of chips. “I have told my children, since they ought to know that their father is no more, that my son is strong,” she says.

Jumman and Tanuja’s son is 13 years old. It was he who recognised his father’s body at the mortuary.

On the morning of the blast, Jumman asked Tanuja to cook rice and eggs. “When I called him in the afternoon to ask when he’d be home, he replied he’d return by evening, and we would have dinner together. He was the best husband in the world. No man can be as good as my husband,” she says.

Najma, Jumman’s older sister, is agitated – she wants justice for the family. “No one [from the government] has come here to ask how we are coping. Is it because we are poor? My brother was the only earning member of the family. He died for no fault of his. The government should look after the children’s education and provide a home to my sister-in-law,” she says.

Tanuja is physically challenged. The family does not think they can afford the Rs 3,500 rent for their home without Jumman.