The Hindu : Front Page : Ten terrible years of tragedy and trauma

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Wednesday, Jun 13, 2007
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Ten terrible years of tragedy and trauma

Staff Reporter

NEW DELHI: R. S. Rahi comes from Hari Nagar in West Delhi to Green Park in South Delhi every day to sit opposite Uphaar Cinema where his son died ten years ago. Struggling to come to terms with the tragic death of the child -- who had gone to see the movie "Border'' with a friend on his 22nd birthday -- Rahi's life has come to a standstill.

"Everything has changed. I sent Sudip for a movie from the house and had to collect his body from a mortuary. I have given up my business and spent the last ten years attending hearings in the lower court. But nothing has moved,'' he says wearily.

Waiting for justice that seems far from their reach even 10 years later, the relatives of the 59 victims see no end in sight. Unable to understand why it has taken so long to punish those responsible, for most it is impossible to be anything but disillusioned.

"I lost everything in the fire. My two children are dead. If even after that I have to fight for justice, it is a shame. It is a simple case. People only in the balcony died. They didn't die because of burns, but asphyxiation. But why has it taken the case so long?'' asks Neelam Krishnamoorthy, president of the Association of the Victims of Uphaar Tragedy.

Hoping to draw attention to the case, the distraught relatives have spent the last ten days lighting candles at Smriti Upvavan, the memorial dedicated to the victims. A big poster of pictures of all 59 stands tall in the park. For the anguished relatives, these images are all they are left with.

It has taken Neelu Kapur ten long years to drum up the courage to ask a question that she does not want to know the answer to. Haunted by how her 20-year-old daughter Ruby died, she couldn't sleep at night for years. "I could hear her calling me at night. I never had the guts to even come to this place for years. I still don't know what happened inside the hall. I asked someone who survived, what happened. She said she could hear young girls crying,'' she says breaking down.

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