‘It is fate’s fault’, says man whose 19-year-old son died in Gurugram building collapse

Around 4.35pm on Thursday, Joginder Singh, who is in his 50s, elbowed through a crowd to reach the spot where a body wrapped in a blanket was laid on the ground.

“Is this your son?” an official asked, pointing to a disfigured, swollen, bloody face. “Mohit,” a feeble sound escaped Singh’s lips and he nodded his head. This was the sixth time he had gone rushing to identify a body and had finally found his son, who was dead.

Mohit’s was the sixth body to be recovered from the rubble. Singh, sporting a black woollen cap that revealed only a part of his face, rushed to the area to see the face each time a body was pulled out.

Singh, of Firozabad in Uttar Pradesh, who works as a security guard at a private firm in the vicinity, lived along with his 19-year-old son, Mohit, in the four-storey building in Ullahawas that collapsed on Thursday morning.

Singh said that his son had joined him hardly two months ago and was also working as a security guard. He was to take his class 12 examination in February. Singh said his wedding was scheduled for March.

“I was on duty when I received a phone call from a neighbour that the building had collapsed and I ran and reached the place by 5.30am,” Singh said. Throughout the morning, he kept crossing into the area where the public was not allowed and was seen multiple times with the NDRF personnel, standing on the rubble.

The police were also aware that his son was trapped in the rubble and did not stop him from entering the rubble.

“In the morning, we were hopeful, but now, there is only 1% chance,” said 25-year-old Ajit Chauhan, Mohit’s cousin around noon, when no one had been found.

Around 2.15pm, Singh, who was standing with NDRF personnel on top of the rubble, was called outside the area by a police officer.

“Sir, kya hogaya?” he asked the officer as his brown eyes welled up.

Suddenly, the earthmover on which he had kept his one leg started, giving him a jolt and police officers escorted him outside the rescue area. He squatted on the side of the three-metre-wide road leading to the site and broke down.

As the first body was pulled out around 2.50pm, Singh made his way through the crowd to get a glimpse of the face. “Not my son,” he said as he shook his head. Each time a body was pulled out of the rubble, Singh did the same the next four times.

Within minutes of Mohit’s body being identified, police took Singh to a room on the ground floor of a house next to the collapse site.

He sat on a sofa, closed his eyes and tilted his head towards the side where a relative was sitting.

The relative talked on the phone to a relative in Uttar Pradesh and said in between his sobs, “Mila, dead body mila.”

Singh stayed silent with his eyes closed. “Naseeb ka galti hai (it is fate’s fault),” he said in a low voice.

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