It took 44 days for Seikh Sahed to travel from Bangkok to Calcutta. In a coffin.
Sahed’s widow, 26-year-old Rupsana Bibi, was inconsolable. She, along with her family and in-laws were present at the domestic cargo terminal at the Netaji Subhas Bose International Airport on Thursday morning where the body was flown in on an Air India flight via Delhi, 44 days after he died in Bangkok, and handed over to his relatives.
“How will I fend for my children now,” she wailed, holding her two-and-a-half-year son in her arms. “My little one doesn’t even realize that he would never see his father ever again,” she kept repeating, as if in hysteria.
Nazrul, Rupsana's brother, tries to wipe the tears of her sister.
Sahed, a 27-year-old migrant worker from Bagpura village in Ramnagar, East Midnapore, perished in a hospital in the Bang Kapi sub-district of Bangkok Metropolis on March 28. The death certificate issued by Thai authorities stated that he died of “Duodenal Ulcer Perforation”. Sahed, lured and recruited by local agents in his village, had reached Bangkok on March 2 this year to work as a cook in a restaurant.
His body lay in the hospital morgue for over 40 days for complications arising out of Sahed being registered with Thai authorities as a “tourist” instead of a “job worker” and because his family back home did not have the means to arrange for the necessary money to get his body back.
Sahed’s story and the plight of the family were reported by The Telegraph Online on April 28.
Nearly a fortnight after the story was published, the migrant worker’s body reached Calcutta, thanks to the intervention of the Union Ministry of External Affairs and the Indian High Commission in Bangkok, some liaison with the Centre by local MP Sisir Adhikari alongside ground support offered to the families by a local Nationalist Congress Party leader Haji Sk Istiak Hossen and the local arm of International Justice Mission, an NGO headquartered in Washington DC.
“I had been in constant touch with the ministry and had written to the secretary stating that the families live below the poverty line and are in no position to pay for bringing the body back. I am happy that the ministry did the needful to get the families out of their distress,” Adhikari told The Telegraph Online.
While Thursday’s development brought some closure to the families by ending their agonizing wait for the body, justice still remained a far cry for Sahed’s relatives.
“We are relieved that the body is finally here. But somehow it’s becoming difficult for us to bear the pain. Sahed was the sole bread earner of this family. We don’t know how we will get past this,” said Nazrul Saha, Rupsana’s brother, while trying to console her sister albeit without much success.
“The agents who deceived Sahed and took him to Bangkok are roaming freely in our area. They took our money, made him false promises and arranged for him a wrong visa. We have repeatedly complained before the police but the local thana is yet to act against them. They will continue to cheat people like us and play with our lives unless they are stopped,” said Jainal Saha, Sahed’s father-in-law, referring to local recruiting agents Sk Lalchand and Sk Asif who allegedly promised a Rs 50,000 monthly salary to Sahed in Bangkok and arranged for his fraudulent transit to Thailand on a tourist visa.
Sahed's original death certificate from Thai authorities.
Sahed’s father, Sk Mujibul and his mother, Duniar Bibi stood with blank expressions in front of their son’s coffin. “I don’t even know where Thailand is. I don’t know how my son landed up there,” Mujibul murmured.
The families plan to bury Sahed next to his parents' home in Bagpura. But their five-hour journey from Calcutta to Ramnagar, with the coffin of their son loaded in an ambulance, is surely going to be the longest journey of their lives.
Sk Sahed's body arrives in a coffin at the domestic cargo terminal at the NSCBI Airport, Calcutta on Thursday morning.
