Mom’s sleeping ‘little doll’ Tarishi gets a teary farewell

Why can’t you let my daughter sleep in peace, asks an inconsolable Tulika

The grieving parents of Tarishi being consoled by relatives during a condolence meeting at Gurgaon in Haryana on Monday. Photo: R. V. Moorthy

“She is my little doll. My flesh and blood. She has taken sleeping pills. She is sleeping, let her sleep. Why can’t you just let her sleep in peace,” screamed Tulika, the mother of Tarishi, one of the victims of Friday’s terror attack in Dhaka, holding a family photo close to her chest even as the body was laid on the funeral pyre at the Sector 29 cremation ground here on Monday.

“They [the terrorists] have killed her. But you are Indians. How can you do this to her? Is it not enough that she is dead,” pleaded Ms. Tulika, rushing towards the pyre to prevent it from being lit. She was then held by the other mourners and taken away.

Almost every eye was moist with tears when Tarishi’s brother Sanchit eventually lit the pyre around 4 p.m. bidding a final farewell to the young girl, remembered as “vivacious” and “full of life” by her family. Relatives and friends, who had gathered in large numbers, could be seen wiping away tears and hugging each other in consolation.

Tarishi's father, Sanjiv Jain, who had been putting up a brave face all this while, also could not control his emotions when one of his close friends Sumit hugged him. Staring at the burning pyre, he finally broke down and gasped: “So, she is no more!”

Rakesh Mohan, one of the three uncles of Tarishi, recalled how the family was all slated to reach Delhi on Saturday morning and later join them in Firozabad. “It was just hours before their flight, scheduled early Saturday morning, that the attack took place. She has come to Delhi, but just see how she has come,” mumbled Mr. Mohan.

Mr. Mohan said he too had heard that the hostages were brutally hacked to death. “I just saw her face. I could not muster the courage to remove the shroud and see how she had been brutalised. I could not live with those images for the rest of my life,” he said.

The last rites were performed away from the media glare as the family had requested privacy. Union Power Minister Piyush Goyal, Union Minister of State for Defence and Planning Rao Inderjit Singh and Haryana PWD Minister Rao Narbir Singh were among those present at the cremation.