Poor family has no time to mourn

Mohit Khanna

Tribune News Service

Chandigarh, June 17

“If you want to really do something, please bring my son back,” said Munder, Ayush’s father.

Munder works in a soft drink company, while his wife Mamta is a domestic help. Both work tirelessly to eke out a living. After Ayush’s death, they are now left with three children.

An eerie silence prevailed in the slum area located near the mosque in Maloya Colony where they reside.

The family has no time to mourn the death of its youngest child as there are other tasks at hand. Saturday night’s rain and high-velocity winds led to the snapping of power supply in the slum.

The couple’s eldest daughter, Anjali, held two candles as her mother Mamta entered the shanty to prepare food for her children. “I have to cook as I have to feed my remaining three children,” said Mamta. “Hum garibo ka kya hai. Bacha mar gaya.

Ab royeingey to roti kab kamayeingey (We are poor. We cannot waste time on mourning the death of our child. After all, we have to eke out a living,” said a woman living in the nearby slum.

Mamta said her children were creating a chaos in the house where she was working.  Fearing that she might lose her job, she decided to leave her children in the park, but that proved to be a grave mistake. “But do you think I had any other option,” said Mamta. 

Not the first incident 

This is not the first incident of dog bite in the city. Earlier this month, a 13-year-old dog-bite victim, Ajay, of Sanjiv Colony in Mauli Jagran was denied treatment by several government medical institutes. The Tribune had highlighted the issue following which the PGI Director, Prof Jagat Ram, offered free treatment to the dog-bite victim at the PGI. Ajay was discharged from the hospital on June 14.

Earlier on March 5, BK Chaudhary, a former DIG and resident of IAS/IPS Society in Sector 49-A, was bitten by a dog.

On April 28, 2017, a  stray dog bit 12 persons in a Mauli Jagran locality and died. The dog was suffering from rabies.

  A girl, Sadia, had died due to rabies at the PGI on April 15, 2015. Her death had caused a huge controversy as her kin had accused a hospital of denying her treatment.