Maharashtra landslide: Let them rest wherever they are, says man who lost 5 family members
Mumbai (PTI): A 65-year-old man who lost five members of his family in the landslide at Irshalwadi in Maharashtra's Raigad district, has said it is better they "rest" in the debris rather than the decomposed bodies be pulled out and cause more pain to him.
Nine members of Kamlu Pardhi's family were buried in the landslide that occurred on July 19, with only four managing to survive the tragedy. The four were pulled out by locals and rescue teams.
At least 17 of 48 houses in Irshalwadi, a tribal village located on a hill slope in the coastal district, around 80 km from Mumbai, were fully or partially buried under the landslide debris.
As the village, overlooked by Irshalgad fort, a popular trekking destination, does not have a pucca road, earth movers and excavators could not be easily moved and the search and rescue operation was carried out manually before being called off on Sunday.
Pardhi, a farmer who used to provide home stay service to people coming from Mumbai for trekking at Irshalgad, lost his wife, younger son Kashinath, daughter-in-law, 14-year-old grandson and a 5-year-old granddaughter in the landslide.
"My wife, son, daughter-in-law and two grandchildren are buried there. Their bodies may now have decomposed and one cannot even identify them. It is better they rest there," the distraught man told PTI on Monday.
He was at the foot of the hillock and returning home when he got to know about the landslide.
"I can only imagine what might have happened to the five members of my family who could not be saved. I keep remembering the faces of my two grandchildren, but what can I do. I am helpless. I had so many dreams for them, but it is all over now," he said.
His son Kashinath was a graduate and served as a gram panchayat member who worked in the village during the COVID-19 pandemic, Pardhi said.
"He was a very helpful man and was always available for villagers. As the search and rescue operation was going on, I continued to hope all my family members would be pulled out alive. But it was not to be," he said in a choked voice.
The debris was almost 20 feet high and many of the bodies that were pulled out had started decomposing, and most were identified by kin from their clothes, he said.
"The search and rescue operation was called off after consent was taken from villagers as well as the Adivasi Sanghatana. Let those
underneath rest where they are," he said.
The state government has placed them temporarily in containers doubling up as houses, Pardhi said, adding that permanent rehabilitation should be carried out close to the village.
"I have three acres of land but no support," he said.
Sachin Mate, chief of the Raigad unit of the Agari Sena and former village sarpanch who was involved in the rescue operation immediately after the disaster struck, also said rehabilitation must be done as quickly as possible.
On Sunday, the National Disaster Response Force (NDRF) called off the search and rescue operation after managing to recover 27 bodies from the rubble.
The rescue operation, which started some time after disaster struck, was carried out manually with the help of volunteers and sniffer dogs as the village is at least an hour away from the nearest motorable road.
State minister Uday Samant told reporters on Sunday that 57 people were missing, while 144 of the 228 people who were staying in Irshalwadi at the time of the incident were lodged in a nearby temple.
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Why assume that they came from Pakistan: Chidambaram's remark on Pahalgam attackers sparks political
New Delhi: A political storm has erupted after senior Congress leader and former finance minister P. Chidambaram questioned the Union government’s narrative surrounding the Pahalgam terror attack and the subsequent Operation Sindoor.
In an interview with The Quint, Chidambaram questioned the assumption that the attackers were from Pakistan, arguing that the government has not shared sufficient information to support that claim. He suggested that the assailants could be homegrown, questioning the lack of evidence linking them to Pakistan.
"Have they identified the terrorists? Where they came from? I mean, for all we know, they could be homegrown terrorists. Why do you assume that they came from Pakistan? There's no evidence of that," he had said in the interview.
Highlighting the scattered nature of updates, Chidambaram pointed out that key information was being shared by different officers in various locations, rather than through a comprehensive statement from senior government officials like the Prime Minister or the Defence Minister.
Meanwhile, the saffron party has reacted sharply to his comments, accusing the Congress of undermining national security and echoing Pakistan’s narrative. BJP IT cell head Amit Malviya posted on X, “Once again, the Congress rushes to give a clean chit to Pakistan, this time after the Pahalgam terror attack. Why is it that every time our forces confront Pakistan-sponsored terrorism, Congress leaders sound more like Islamabad's defence lawyers than India's opposition?"
However, Chidambaram referred to the criticism as a "deliberate misinformation campaign" and mentioned that his comments were being misrepresented by selectively muting and clipping portions of his interview. “Trolls are of different kinds and use different tools to spread misinformation. The worst kind is a troll who suppresses the full recorded interview, takes two sentences, mutes some words, and paints the speaker in a black colour!” he wrote on X.
