Bangladesh News

The villages of Rampur and Mominnagar are resonant with the wailing of grieving families.

The train-bus collision at the Elenga Razarbari rail crossing on the Tangail-Mymensingh highway on Wednesday morning, allegedly caused by a negligent gateman, brought an end to the lives of 14 weavers, leaving their families to a seemingly bleak future.

Janu Begum, 36, wife of handloom trader Dulal who died in the accident, has been crying non-stop since she heard the tragic news. Added to the grief of her own widowhood is the worry about the future of her three daughters — Dulon, 12, Sampa, 9, and Shahanoor, 5.

“What will I do? How will I feed these children? My daughters have no future now,” wailed Janu as her children too cried for the loss of their father.

Shyamoli Begum, 25, also of Rampur, has been dumbstruck by news of her husband Monir Hossain’s death. Her three-year-old son Siam is probably too young to understand the extent of his loss.

Monir’s mother Lili Begum has taken to her bed since Wednesday. Talking to the Daily Star, she asked about the future of Monir’s son saying, “Who will bring up Siam now?”

“I just want my son back,” she kept wailing.

Ambia Khatun, 50, wife of another ill-fated cloth trader Solaiman of the same village, cried helplessly as she told The Daily Star how her husband Solaiman left home at midnight for the bus ride to Karotia hut (bazar) with a packet of cloth that day.

“How could I know this was the last time I would see him?” Ambia cried, “how could I know?”

“Where am I to go now with my two daughters and one son? Who will look after us?” she kept asking.

Almost every other household in Rampur has a similar story to tell.

Cloth trader Jang Bahadur, 55, has been drifting in and out of consciousness out of shock since the tragedy killed his eldest son Faruque Hossain, 24.

“All my dreams are shattered,” he wailed as he talked about how his son had completed all paperwork to go to Cyprus for higher studies.

“My Faruque passed HSC from the Maj Gen Mahmudul Hasan College in Tangail town last year, he was so bright,” Jang Bahadur wailed as neighbours and relatives tried to console him.

Jang is inconsolable as are the families Sujat Ali, Fazlul Haque, Shofiqul, Dudu Miah, Riazul Islam, Ahad Hossain, Alauddin and Golam Hossain of the same village. Most of them have lost their main breadwinner and in addition to the grief of losing a dear one, they now face the prospect of an uncertain future.

This is the first time that a single accident has touched Rampur so deeply.

Lal Mahmud, an uncle of cloth trader Altaf who also died in the accident, told The Daily Star that the real tragedy was the fact that the accident had pushed the families of the dead men into very uncertain futures.

Some of the traders who died in the accident were also handloom owners and their small factories are now left without anyone to run them. The poor factory workers are worried about their futures, as they don’t know if work will continue or not.

A total of 17 people including 14 cloth traders — 10 from Rampur village and four from Mominnagar — were killed in the tragic accident on Wednesday.

Aslam Ahmed, chairman of Balla Union Parishad, told The Daily Star that it was a heart-rending scene when the bodies of all 14 cloth traders of the union were brought home on Wednesday afternoon.

All the dead were buried side by side at Rampur graveyard.

“Rail authorities have reassured us that the families of the victims would receive compensation after an administrative investigation,” Aslam said.

In the meantime, Tangail Deputy Commissioner (DC) Akhter Ali Sarkar visited the families of Dulal Miah and Solaiman at Rampur village yesterday.

He gave Tk 15,000 to Solaiman’s wife Ambia Khatun and Tk 10,000 to Dulal’s wife Janu Begum.

The DC assured the family members of the other deceased that they would all receive financial help from the authorities.