NEW DELHI, January 17: Last Sunday, when Sanjeev Nanda's BMW drove past the Hudco building on Lodhi Road, it threw a family from Darbhanga in Bihar into the depth of darkness. The family's only flicker of hope was snuffed out yesterday when Mehdi Hassan died, after six days in coma. Now a tragic tale is complete: Three sisters, Kulhunnissa, Saifunnissa and Mehrunnisa, have lost their eldest sons.Gulab, Nasir and Mehdi Hassan were supporting their families working in Delhi until the BMW drove over them. Now their families are orphaned, with only invalid old people and children who are too young to work.Today, at 2.30 p.m. Mehdi's body was taken from Nabi Karim, where he stayed, for burial. His father Abdul Jabbar, Gulab's father Mohammad Phulo and his three little brothers accompanied the cortege. Mehdi, 22, and Nasir, 19, had grown up together after the latter lost his father at the age of three.As Nasir's mother Saifunnissa sat lifeless, shaking her head with a feeble moan beside sister Mehrunnissa, a cousin, Gulshan, massaged her face with oil as if to revive her. ``Help her. She is a poor widow. Her only other child, 14 year old Naseem, is in a madrassa in Bombay and she depended solely on what Nasir sent her now and then,'' she says.``Will she live after this?'' the mourners say among themselves. There is no feeling of rancour or anger at the accident. There is only sorrow, feeling of loss and helplessness. Nasir and Mehdi were working at a shop, making bags and jackets out of discarded leather, Gulab was a mechanic. All the three were going to the railway station on Sunday morning, fromIn BMW's killer ride, three sisters lost their sons where Gulab was to catch a train to Bihar. ``Nasir had gone with Mehdi on Saturday in the evening. He had taken some money and clothes to sent with Gulab for his mother,'' said Mehrunnissa.``They said they would return by 8.30 at night. But Gulab persuaded them to stay on and to drop him at the railway station in the morning,'' she said.Mehrunnissa herself is no better off than her sister. Her husband is ill with a chest disease, perhaps tuberculosis. ``There is water in his chest and he depended on medicines Mehdi bought him,'' says Mehrunnissa. ``If he stops taking medicines, he will also die,'' says her 7-year-old daughter Nasreen.While Mehdi looked after his parents and four younger siblings, Gulab who worked as a mechanic, was sending his earnings to his family of old parents and three younger sisters in Darbhanga. Gulab's father Mohammad Phulo had come from Bihar taking some of the money he had kept by for his eldest daughter Juhinissa's marriage. ``The marriage will not take place now,'' his relatives say. ``Gulab was to organise the marriage,'' says Abdul Jabbar, Mehdi's father.No one from the families of the accused has come to them so far offering help or sympathy. ``We are enemies, how would they come,'' says Mehrunnissa referring to those who caused her son's death. ``Upar wala insaf karega,'' she says. While someone suggests that the deaths were not caused intentionally, a cousin Momin, says they would organise donations and fight for a fair deal for the three sisters who lost their young sons.While Gulab's wife who he married a year ago has got Rs 25,000 and Mehdi's parents have got Rs 20,000 from an NGO, Artists for Empowerment, Rs 5,000 has gone to Nasir's mother.The families do not know who has given them the money. All they know is that their little children and their aging bodies have nothing to look forward to.
