MALAPPURAM: Far away from Perumannu, the village which was on Friday mourning the eight children killed by a vehicle gone berserk, Shabila, 12, and her younger brother Shahal, 7, sat helplessly weeping inside their humble dwelling at Chemmankadavu near Kodur here.
As tears rolled down their cheeks, the two must have been wondering in dull incomprehension how their father Abdul Kabeer was destined to invite on himself the curse of nine families who lost their dear ones in the tragic accident.
The lament of the grief-stricken family, including Kabeer’s wife Sakkeena, was hardly noticed by any outsider.
Friday being a holiday for some of the Muslim schools in Malappuram, Kabeer’s little children stayed back home, occasionally watching the heart-rending visuals of the mishap on television.
Shahal, a first standard student of AMLP School in west Kodur, couldn’t quite figure out what hit the family.
When he saw mothers and kids of Kannur crying on the mini-screen, he too just broke down. Shabila, a sixth standard student of Chemmankadavu GMUP School, watched the same scenes in disbelief, sobs racking her fragile frame.
“Kabeer had called me soon after the incident on my mobile. He told me that the incident occurred while trying to save a kid who unexpectedly crossed the road,” Sakkena said.
“Whatever the reason, we have no way of escaping the agony of the parents who lost their children,” she said weeping.
Kabeer and his family, which includes his two sisters, had been getting ready for the Bakrid celebrations here.
The mishap has actually shaken his neighbours and relatives. “We do not know why it has fallen to his lot, that too when he is struggling to make both ends meet,” whimpered Fathima, the 65-year-old mother-in-law of Kabeer.
Kabeer was at home last Wednesday after being “out in the field” for a month at different places in Malappuram and Kannur districts. “He left for Kannur on Wednesday night and must have been drowsy when the accident took place,” Sakkena says. “We will never justify what happened, but for god’s sake don’t portray him as a ‘killer driver’. It was to feed us that he had to take up so many jobs at the same time,” she says even as a fresh wave of sobs convulse her.