Trapped brothers clueless about death of kin | India News

KHAIRABERA (JHARKHAND): They grew up in the same sleepy hamlet, playing, cracking jokes and waking up together. But fate played a cruel joke and life changed completely for the Bediya family of Khairabera in 11 days.
First, news that 22-year-old Rajendra Bediya and his two brothers, Anil Bediya (22) and Sukhram Bediya (23), were trapped in the Uttarkashi tunnel shocked the family on November 12.
Late on Tuesday, news of the accidental death of Dinesh Bediya and Shankar Bediya, also in their twenties, left everyone in the household shattered. “It’s been a daily routine for me to push my physically-challenged husband Shravan in a wheelchair to the village square every morning to hear the latest news from the tunnel in Silkyara. But today we received news that their cousins, Dinesh and Shankar, who were more than blood brothers for them, are gone,” said tribal woman Phool Kumari Devi, crying.On Tuesday a speeding truck overturned after the driver lost control and hit three other vehicles, including a car and a tractor, from the rear on NH-33. Both Dinesh (22) and Shankar (29), who were travelling on the tractor, died on the spot.
“We got 50 kg of rice and two bodies from the authorities. What about our loss,” asked Phool Kumari Devi, who was still waiting in the village square to hear news from Uttarakhand as darkness fell.
Stranded in the tunnel in Silkyara, Rajendra Bediya and his two brothers have no clue of the tragedy back home. “We don’t want them to know anything yet. We are now praying for their life and hoping they will come back walking, and not in an ambulance,” said another villager.
When TOI visited Khairabera village, in Ranchi district’s Oremanjhi block, on Wednesday, Shravan, incapacitated by a stroke, tearfully asked who now would update him about his three sons stuck in the tunnel.

“Babu, mere heere ke baare me koi khabar laye hain kya (Have you brought any information about my sons stranded in the tunnel),” he asked.
Shravan said Dinesh and Shankar were a big support after three children migrated in search of jobs. “Dinesh used to tell me whatever was being done to rescue the labourers. Now who will tell me about my son,” said Shravan, weeping inconsolably.
When his son Rajendra left for Uttarkashi along with Anil and Sukhram, it was Dinesh who had gone to the railway station to see them off.

Charku (75) and Barhan (60), two neighbours, say poverty is why children from the village are trapped in danger while they sit at home. “We are all old and can do nothing except wait for our sons,” Charku said.
The village is nearly 500 metres from the Ranchi-Patna national highway. A number of villagers work in stone crushing units as labourers, while some youths work as tractor drivers. Others migrate.