Justice, compensation elude family three years after school teacher drowned in stormwater drain
The pothole laden New Avadi road at Kilpauk was relaid partially after DC published the picture on Monday. The road continues to pose a serious threat to motorists and pedestrians. (Photo: DC )
Chennai: If only Sarala had not chosen to walk along North Usman Road on that fateful and rainy Friday evening in 2011, she would have lived to celebrate last week’s Deepavali with her family happily.
Three years after the schoolteacher met her watery grave, Sarala‘s bereaved mother Amsa and brother Sakthivel, who together fished her body out of a brimming stormwater drain in T Nagar on November 5, 2011, have only her framed photograph and some old churidhars as a remainder.
Time had done little to heal the wounds of Sakthivel’s, who took his wife Yasodha on Deepavali day to the very spot where his sister died. The stormwater drain that consumed Sarala’s life is covered better and very few in the neighbourhood even remember her demise now. The perturbed family has been forced to take her death in its strides, for, neither justice nor much compensation other than the Rs 2 lakh the state government gave them then had reached the struggling family.
All that is officially known of her demise now is a chargesheet against a couple of contractors who had executed the drain work and a pending trial in a city court.
“There are very few corporation officials I had not met in the last three years. Everyone instructs me to meet another. We even offered to return the money. All we want is justice, but, nothing has happened thus far,” Sakthivel complained, refusing to speak further.
“I know her well since childhood. She is my niece. She would have become a successful teacher and homemaker. Even that fateful Friday evening, second day after Deepavali, she refused to skip the spoken English class for which she went to T Nagar, “Yasodha said adding, “Officials brought a cheque for Rs 2 lakh to our native in Cheyyar. My husband told me that they were called once to the court or police station shortly after her death. That’s the last we heard from them. We do not know what has become of the case. The officials should be punished, but we are helpless,” lamented Yasodha, holding a photograph of Sarala she had pulled from the table holding a free (govt) colour TV, the only major gadget that could be seen in the cramped 8x8 hall of their three-room rented house at MGR Nagar in Jaffarkhanpet.
G. Saranya was at the pharmacy store near Retteri, where she works, when she received a call from her uncle on Monday informing the 21-year-old about the demise of her father Gunasekar.
P. Gunasekar (48) had died after he fell when he tripped over a pothole at Mandaveli Street in Mandaveli.
Gunasekar, was returning to the flourmill where he worked after having tea when the incident happened. He died on the way to the hospital.
Gunasekar lived with his wife Mangalam (46) and his two daughters Saranya, 21, and Gomathy,22, in a single room accommodation on Kannagi Street, Thiruvalluvar Nagar in Retteri. The three women rushed to the Government Royapettah Hospital immediately. The body was handed over to them on Tuesday morning. The family had lost their sole breadwinner.
Gomathy and Saranya, both commerce graduates, are yet to get a permanent job. While Gomathy is a trainee at a card counter at food court in an IT Park in Taramani, Saranya works part-time at the pharmacy store near her house. Gunasekar’s wife Mangalam suffers from a physical ailment and cannot run the family. The responsibility of the family has fallen on the two girls, said S.Ramesh, the deceased’s brother in-law.
By Tuesday evening when Gunasekar’s family had finished with the cremation, civic officials had arrived in trucks with gravel to do temporary patchwork on the potholed stretch. Immediately after the incident on Monday, a number of officials including the ward councilor J. P.Chandrika visited the spot. “They didn’t bother to visit in the past three years despite repeated complaints from residents,” said S. Rajagopal, a resident of the area for the past 17 years.
Denying reports that Gunasekar could have died of a cardiac arrest, his family said that the man didn’t have a history of any ailments. “My father, however, used to take medicine for a respiratory problem a few years ago,” Saranya said.
An investigating official with Mylapore police confirmed that Gunasekar had a visible injury on his forehead and on his chest. “The reason for his death will be ascertained only after the post mortem report which is expected in two days,” the official added.
A false-ceiling contractor, Sakthivel received some work order last weekend after a ‘jobless’ fortnight. The family has been making its ends meet with the Rs 4,000 pension plus some savings the retired MTC conductor-father Munian had received in the interim. With hopes lost, acquittal of the contractors will be the last thing the family would anticipate even as they prepare for Sarala’s death anniversary due next week.
( Source : dc )
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