Samruddhi Expressway collapse: They won’t be home for festival, families now await workers’ bodies

The family — comprising Roy’s wife, mother and two sons, aged 14 and 10 — who had been expecting to meet Roy during the next festivities, will now collect his body, which is slated to arrive in West Bengal’s Jalpaiguri district on Thursday evening.

Roy was among the 20 people, including two engineers, who were killed Monday night when a crane and girder collapsed during construction work for the third phase of the Samruddhi Expressway in Thane’s Shahapur, around 80 km from Mumbai.

Most of those dead were migrant workers from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and West Bengal, officials said.

A native of New Jalpaiguri district’s Dhupguri town, Roy had been working on the project for the past two years.

While the extended family members learnt of the tragedy shortly after the incident, Roy’s wife, mother and children were not informed of his death until Wednesday afternoon.

Relatives of Roy told The Indian Express that the family has been inconsolable since they were informed about his demise.

Speaking to The Indian Express, the victim’s cousin Swapan Roy recalled that, in a recent conversation that he had with Pradeep, he had mentioned that he was missing his family and would come to Dhupguri to visit them only two months later, during Durga Puja festival.

Roy’s cousin said, “When we had come to visit us during Poila Boisakh, he told us that he was planning another trip during Durga Puja. Only a few days ago, when I had been speaking to him over a phone call, he informed me that he was missing the family and the village, a lot.”

Besides Pradeep Roy, three other victims of the collapse also hailed from Jalpaiguri district whose families will collect their bodies Thursday.

One of them was 40-year-old Ganesh Chandra Rai, from Jalpaiguri who was working at the Shahapur site as a labourer for the past over two years.

Shamal Rai, the distant relative of Ganesh said that Ganesh is survived by his elderly mother, wife and two children.

Anil Upadhyay , the brother of Arvind Upadhyay,33, who also died in the Shahapur mishap said that Arvind was working as a supervisor with a company which was carrying out the bridge construction and is survived by his elderly parents, wife and five-month-old daughter.

“He was a hardworking and dedicated man and was also well educated. He got married just two years ago and five months ago he was blessed with a baby girl. After the birth of his daughter he managed to come home only once and wanted to come home to be with his daughter and had planned to take a long holiday. But before that all this happened,” Anil, who was taking the body to his hometown in Uttar Pradesh, said.