KENDRAPARA: A family of Endulapur village in Kendrapara’s Rajkanika block is living in agony since its sole breadwinner went missing after the deadly triple train crash at Bahanaga in Balasore on June 2.
Purushottam Mohanty (47) was on way to Kolkata in the ill-fated Yesvantpur-Howrah Super Fast when the train collided with the derailed Coromandel Express. Since then, nobody knows about his whereabouts. Purushottam’s father, wife, children and relatives are in shock and anxiously waiting for answers on his fate which continues to remain a mystery.
Purushottam’s 72-year-old father Bhabagrahi Mohanty said, “On hearing about the train accident, I rushed to Balasore with my son’s brother-in-law. But we could not get any information about him. We also searched the hospitals and mortuaries in Balasore, Baripada, Bhadrak, Cuttack and Bhubaneswar for three days but to no avail. The horrifying condition of the corpses made it difficult for us to identify anybody.”
On Tuesday, the doctors in AIIMS-Bhubaneswar collected blood samples from Bhabagrahi for DNA sampling to ascertain if Purushottam’s body was among the corpses kept in the hospital. “I am clinging to the hope that my son survived the crash. God will not be so cruel to us. Purushottam is my only son. He is also the only earning member of our family,” said Bhabagrahi as tears rolled down his eyes.
Similarly, life has not been the same for wife Gauri and daughter Pritilata who find it hard to accept that they would never see Purushottam again. “My father was working in a plywood factory in Kolkata for the last 22 years. Last week, he had come to our village and on Friday, boarded Yesvantpur-Howrah Express at Bhadrak railway station to return to his workplace in Kolkata. Before boarding the train, he talked to me on the phone. We never thought such a tragedy would befall us,” said 23-year-old Pritilata.
Son Pramod (20) said for the last five days, the family is running from pillar to post to get information about his father. Contacted, district emergency officer Ananya Tripathy said, “We have no information about the missing of Purushottam Mohanty in the train accident.”