When Pawan Bansal (62), a retired Assistant General Manager of the State Bank of Patiala, left his Sector 56 residence in Gurgaon on Wednesday morning to appear in the Delhi High Court in a case on behalf of his employer, no one realised that he would not return home alive.
Just a few hours after Mr. Bansal, who had taken up the job of a financial advisor in Bengali Market post-retirement, left for the court, his only son Manu, a chartered accountant, saw news about the blast on a television channel in his office. He then made frantic calls to his father and his anxiety only increased when he found the phone switched off. He then called up his mother to inform her about the incident and immediately left for Delhi.
“Mr. Bansal was perhaps standing very close to the bomb when it went off. So badly mutilated was his body that his son could not identify him at the first instance at the Ram Manohar Lohia Hospital. He then rushed to All-India Institute of Medical Sciences and Safdarjung Hospital only to return to RML and claim the body,” said a close relative of the family, not willing to be named.
The death came at a point when the Bansals were preparing for the wedding of Manu. “Mr. Bansal had met me a few weeks ago when he told me about Manu's wedding. It was scheduled for later this year and he seemed very excited. I do not know how they would go about it now,” said Rakesh Bansal, a relative.
The Bansals had shifted from Dwarka to their Vidya Enclave residence in Gurgaon only six months ago. “Mr. Bansal's son works for a private company in Manesar and his colleague bought an apartment in the Enclave recently. It was on his advice that the Bansals bought a flat in the society and shifted to Gurgaon. Though he was new to the society, Mr. Bansal had won many hearts with his friendly and jovial nature. Our friendship had just began to blossom, when the cruel hands of destiny snatched him. We have lost a good human being in his death,” said Vidya Enclave residents' welfare association secretary P.S. Bhalla, a French professor.
The last rites of Mr. Bansal, who is survived by his wife, son and a daughter, were performed at a cremation ground near IFFCO Chowk in the afternoon.
