NEW DELHI: Rukhsana Khatun had made a routine call to her cousin, Mohamad Ghiyas, 19, on Saturday but he didn’t respond.
While she awaited his response, she received a call from her hometown Saharsa in Bihar on Sunday informing her about the tragic blaze in the building, where he worked with Mubarak. She was told that her aunt’s elder son Mubarak was dead.
As she rushed to the hospital, the police handed her a photograph of Ghiyas and that is when she got to know it was Ghiyas who was no more, and that Mubarak had survived.
Ghiyas was to turn 20 in January next year. He had arrived in Delhi last month to spend some time with his brother Mubarak.
He took up a job in the factory to save money for his sister’s wedding, according to Rukhsana, who lives in Noida.
“He stayed with me earlier, and learnt how to stitch clothes from my husband and me. He went back to his village after I moved to Ludhiana. On November 3, he called to inform he was coming to Delhi,” she recalled.
She looks at his belongings still at her place, and breaks down. “Oh Lord! All his stuff is lying with me. He is gone forever,” shared Rukhsana.
Ghiyas is survived by four sisters, his mother, a physically-challenged father and brother Mubarak, who is admitted at the orthopaedic department at Lok Nayak Jai Prakash Narayan Hospital.
While Ghiyas’ relatives waited to collect his body, 12-year-old Ali Ahmad came with his grandmother to take his father’s body for last rites. Ali had visited his father’s workplace thrice.
Out of the many, waiting at the mortuary, were the relatives of brothers Wajid and Wajeed, who died in the blaze. Their elder brother Shajid, who was with them in the building, survived as he managed to escape in time. “Shajid was awake. He tried to wake the others up but they thought he was joking,” one of their relatives said. “Poor fellows! They couldn’t realise that it happened for real,” he added.