CHENNAI: Vidyadhar Juanga (Rajesh) spent the past two days sitting in a relief camp outside a hospital in Tiruvallur, unaware that his sister’s mortal remains had reached home in Odisha.
Gumani Juanga, his 15-year-old sister, according to her Aadhar card, left her village in Keonjhar, in the tribal heartland of Odisha, just five months ago to take a job at St Peter & Paul Sea Food Exports Pvt Ltd in Kannigaiper, on the promise of a monthly salary of Rs 15,000.
She had dropped out of school after Class 5 to help support the family. Rajesh says a company supervisor persuaded Gumani, along with several other youths from their village, to make the journey to Chennai. Gumani is among the 10 to die after inhaling high levels of ammonia during Sunday’s gas leak at her workplace.
“She was happy here,” Rajesh says. “This was her first job— and it became her last.”
Rajesh himself works at a factory in in Andhra Pradesh. Gumani had recently bought a mobile phone and the siblings spoke every morning and evening. They had planned to travel home together for Raja, Odisha’s biggest festival. “Bhai, I’ll save some money and we’ll go in October,” she had said.
On Saturday, with his own wages delayed, he had borrowed money from his younger sister to buy rations. “The next day she was no more,” he says. “I still can’t believe she is gone.”
“I was told that I would take the mortal remains home on Tuesday, but now I have been told they have reached Odisha,” says a confused Rajesh, unsure how his sister’s remains were airlifted without his knowledge. Tamil Nadu police and revenue officials, along with the Odisha government, have arranged a train ticket to take him from Chennai on Wednesday. But one question haunts him: “What will I tell my parents?”