Parents, children, and newlyweds: Stories from Karur stampede

Karur, Tamil Nadu: Holding his only child, Sushant, who was recuperating from a surgery following a road accident, profusely cried after losing his wife, Brinda, in the stampede at actor-politician Vijay’s public rally on Saturday.

Attempting to put his daughter to sleep, Sushant told his relatives at the Karur Government Medical College Hospital that he was clueless as to how he would make his two-year-old child understand that her mother would never return.

The child, unaware of what was unfolding before her, tried to persuade her aunt to play with her.

“How do I bring up this child alone without my Brinda? She never left the child alone. Yesterday was the first time she left the child with me. I can’t fathom that she won’t ever return to me and my daughter,” Sushant told DH.

Brinda, who went to the rally with a couple of her friends, went missing and was found unconscious at the venue on Saturday night but her family came to know about her death only on Sunday morning. While 10 kids lost their lives, a majority of the adults who fell victim to the stampede were under the age of 40.

A mother with hearing and speech impairment unable to even cry aloud as she mourned her two-year-old Hari Vishnu’s death, a family unable to control their emotions at losing a to-be wed couple, tears rolling down two teenagers who have lost their father, the family’s sole breadwinner, and another family mourning the loss of a mother and her two daughters.

The scene outside the mortuary of the hospital was heart wrenching as relatives, unable to control their emotions, broke down at seeing the body of their loved ones. Most of the victims were daily labourers and had come to Veluswamy Nagar in this textile town only to take a glimpse at Vijay but little did they know that they will only return home as lifeless bodies.

Pictures of the father holding Vishnu in his arms and pleading for help broke everyone’s heart. At their home, the father could cry out his emotions but the child’s mother stood still due to her disability. Vishnu was taken to the rally by his aunt.

Ambulances lined up one after the other to transport bodies to their respective localities in Karur and neighbouring districts, with loved ones screaming and beating their chest as the lifeless bodies were taken out of the mortuary.

As politicians made a beeline to visit the hospital to pay their respects to the deceased and meet the injured, the relatives of the victims had a tough time controlling their emotions.

“I have no one to fight with anymore. He should have returned home at least to keep fighting with him,” a woman told her relatives with tears rolling down her cheeks as she mourned her brother’s death.

Gokula Sri and Akash, who were to exchange wedding vows next month, went to the rally despite warnings from their family members that the venue will be heavily crowded.

“They didn’t listen and went to the rally. But I kept calling them every hour to check on them. When I called at 7.30 pm, there was no response. I lost not just my daughter, but my would-be son-in-law too. They were trampled to death,” an inconsolable mother of 24-year-old Gokula Sri told DH.

A teenage girl, whose identity has been withheld, said she was saved by a Good Samaritan, who rescued her from the site once Vijay’s vehicle came to the spot. “If not for that person, I would have been part of the list of victims,” she added.