The Hindu : Front Page : Heart-rending scenes in Bamroli

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Thursday, Apr 17, 2008
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Heart-rending scenes in Bamroli

Manas Dasgupta

BODELI: A pall of gloom descended on Bamroli village near Bodeli in Vadodara district of Gujarat on Wednesday. The village, with just about 100 houses, most of them from a socially and educationally backward community, lost 19 of its children when a State-owned bus fell into the Narmada dam canal. Heart-rendering scenes were witnessed in the village as all the bodies were collected near the Rameshwar Mahadev temple before being taken to the bank of the Orsong river for burial.

The villagers said everyone, including children and the elderly, observed a day of fasting and prayer.

While Bamroli accounted for the highest number of casualties, the other deceased belonged to five villages — Patnapeeth, which lost eight of its children, Samdhi, Salpura, Suryaghoda and Popariya. The children from Bamroli boarded the bus at the pick-up point about two km outside the village, unaware what awaited them just three km away. Starting from Vagdol, Bamroli was the last village for the bus before it reached Bodeli, the destination it never made it on Wednesday.

The locals were agitated over the alleged delay in rushing assistance to the rescue of children trapped in the bus. They protested when Vadodara district panchayat president Rajesh Patel reached Bamroli to communicate the government’s announcement of Rs.1 lakh compensation to the next of kin of each of the deceased.

“We do not want money, give us our daughters back,” they said.

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