CHENNAI: “He was such a brilliant and fun-loving man. We cannot see a more responsible person. He never rode the bike without a helmet,” said a relative of Giridharan, after the funeral on Wednesday evening. The family is grieving over the loss of their newly married son who left for work as usual and lost his life in “an accident” which the family feels is due to sheer negligence of Metrorail authorities.
“When we received a call from Giri’s parents we thought they called to say that Uthra got labour pain. We did not expect this,” said the victim’s aunt. Giridharan’s wife Uthra is eight months pregnant and due for delivery next month. “There were such a loving couple, and it’s barely a year since they got married”, said his mother-in-law her voice choking over the plight of her young daughter who fainted at the sight of her husband’s body being taken away to be cremated.
His cousins said that Giridharan was very excited about the baby and he put up WhatsApp status every day with baby pictures. “We cannot believe he will not see his child’s face,” they said. Giridharan works as an IT recruiter in V2 soft solutions private limited. He lived with his parents and wife at Madipakkam. They had just shifted here a year ago. His father is a retired teacher and his mother is working in a private school. His wife is an employee at Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) in Chennai.
“It is entirely because of negligence of the metro authorities. More than 100 people have died now and more will die before they complete the metro-rail project. The Bangalore metro project started way behind Chennai metro and trains are already plying,” said B.S. Ramachandran, a retired journalist who worked for the Swadesamitran newspaper. He is a freelancer and a distant relative of Giridharan. He said the family should be given a minimum Rs 3 crore compensation calculating the monthly income and years of service remaining in Giridharan’s career.
