A father from Kakdwip, who had searched in vain for his missing son for five days in Odisha after the triple-train crash on June 2, was back in Bhubaneswar on Monday night to receive the 20-year-old’s body.
A DNA match finally enabled the authorities to identify body 123A as that of Abbachuddin Seikh, 20, from Madhusudanpur in the Kakdwip block of South 24-Parganas.
Abbachuddin was among the 11 men from the village who were travelling on the Coromandel Express to Chennai to work as construction workers. The train met with an accident involving two other trains in Bahanaga in Odisha’s Balasore.
His father Ebadall Seikh had given his blood sample for the DNA test before returning home after his futile search for his son.
Ebadall Seikh. File picture
“Around 10am Monday, a woman called me up to inform me that a match of my DNA sample has been found with one dead body,” Ebadall told The Telegraph over the phone from Bhubaneswar on Tuesday. “We hired a vehicle and immediately left for Bhubaneswar.”
He and another family member reached AIIMS Bhubaneswar, where the body was kept in a morgue, late on Monday.
The hospital authorities told them that the body that was identified as Abbachuddin’s was beyond recognition.
Till the phone call on Monday morning, Ebadall was nurturing hope that his son was alive and being treated at some hospital.
“After I had failed to find my son, I hoped he would be found in some hospital, alive. But now all hope is gone,” he said.
A member of Ebadall’s family who accompanied him to Bhubaneswar said the AIIMS authorities had arranged for their stay. The body was yet to be handed to the family till late on Tuesday evening because of pending formalities.
“They have told us a cheque will be handed to us — a compensation for our loss,” the family member said.
Abbachuddin was the elder of Ebadall’s two sons. The younger son, aged 10, suffers from an intellectual disability.
Of the 11 passengers from Madhusudanpur who were travelling to Chennai, only one has been found alive — Ibrahim Seikh. The bodies of three of the passengers had been identified till Ebadall got the call on Monday morning.
“My son was very happy when one of the men from our village informed him that there was a project in Chennai where he could work. He was laughing when he left... they were travelling in a big group,” said Ebadall.
“I was happy, too, because he was not alone. He was travelling with several others from our village.”
The father and son had earlier worked at construction sites in Kerala and Gujarat. Ebadall is a skilled mason, while Abbachuddin worked as a helper.
Ebadall said Abbachuddin badly needed to join the project in Chennai because he had a wife and a six-month-old son.