The body of 17-year-old migrant worker Habibul Sheikh, who died in Gujarat’s Morbi bridge collapse on Sunday evening, reached his home in East Burdwan’s Purbasthali before daybreak on Tuesday.

Hundreds of villagers, police and state government officials, along with the state animal resource development minister Swapan Debnath, waited till 3am on Tuesday to pay homage to Habibul, who was laid to rest at the village graveyard around 10am.

Debnath said he reached the village late on Monday on chief minister Mamata Banerjee’s instructions. “I stayed there till the body reached the village,” Debnath said.

Habibul, a Class XI dropout, is the only one so far known from Bengal to have died in the Morbi cable bridge collapse. He moved to Morbi 10 months ago to work at his uncle Sahibul Sheikh’s jewellery shop.

He, along with four of his friends from Hooghly and Howrah, had gone to the bridge on Sunday evening. His friends are hospitalised in Morbi.

Sources said the Bengal government sent an additional district magistrate of East Burdwan to Calcutta airport to receive the body.

A senior official in Nabanna said the Bengal government will coordinate with its counterpart in Gujarat to ensure Habibul’s family gets compensation of Rs 4 lakh from Gujarat government and Rs 2 lakh from the Centre meant for the next-of-kin of all who died in the bridge collapse.

Katwa MLA Rabindranath Chatterjee accused the BJP-led Gujarat government of not cooperating in sending Habibul’s body home.

He said the family had to borrow Rs 1 lakh to bring the body home.

“The Gujarat government played an inhuman role even after the death of the teenager from Bengal. The family had to borrow Rs 1 lakh to carry the corpse and arrange flight tickets. We, on behalf of our party, have paid Habibul’s family members the money they had to borrow to bring the body home," said Chatterjee.

"It was a duty of the Gujarat government to arrange transportation of corpse at no cost. But unfortunately that did not happen," he added.

As political leaders, police, administrative officials and villagers thronged the place, Habibul’s family was inconsolable. They cursed their economic condition and blamed it for Habibul’s death.

“We are poor marginal farmers. It was sheer poverty that led my elder brother to send Habibul to Gujarat for work. He had to leave school to take up a job in faraway Morbi," said Hasibul Sheikh, uncle of the teenager.