Red Fort blast: Families struggle to come to terms with loss of loved ones

New Delhi, Nov 12 (PTI) "Only his torso was recovered...we identified him by the clothes he was wearing that day," said the grieving sister of Mohammad Jumman, one of the victims of the Red Fort blast.

Out of the 12 deceased, eight have been identified so far, according to police.

A police officer said, "A total of eight bodies have been identified so far, while the remaining four have been preserved for DNA testing. The bodies will be handed over to their family members after the test results are confirmed." The deceased who have been identified included Amar Kataria (35), Mohammad Jumman (35), Ashok Kumar (34), Mohsin Malik (35), Dinesh Kumar Mishra (35), Lokesh Kumar Agrawal (52), Pankaj Saini (23) and Mohammad Nauman (19).

Jumman, an e-rickshaw driver, was the sole breadwinner of his family.

"My brother's e-rickshaw was GPS enabled. The last location of his vehicle was near Red Fort. So we went there but came to know that he had died. There was no head, no hands, no feet. We identified his torso through the clothes on it," said Jumman's sister Najma.

She said that Jumman has left behind his mother, a differently abled wife and three small children.

"Who will look after them? My sister-in-law cannot even go out and do a job. His children are so young. We have not heard anything from the government. They should take care of the education of his children," she said.

In Kalkaji, the bereaved family members of Amar Kataria, another blast victim, were still in shock. Amar ran a medicine shop and would leave his home every day around 10 am and return by 7.30 pm.

"Amar was our only son. He had got married four years ago and has a three-year-old son. He had called us 10 minutes before the blast, saying he was on his way home.

"Later, when we called him, a woman picked up and told us that she had found his phone near Red Fort where a blast had happened," recalled his father Jagdish Kataria.

The family then rushed to Red Fort where they learnt that the victims were taken to the LNJP Hospital.

The family waited till 5 am on Tuesday and then got his body, his father said. PTI SLB BM SLB BM KVK KVK