Four days on, relief yet to reach villages in Bengal

Jalpaiguri: A 29-year-old young man watched helplessly as his wife and two children were swept away in the heavy deluge on Saturday night following incessant rains. There was no one to take their bodies for the last rites. Relief did not reach them for the next few days as their homes, amid the tea gardens, hills and lush-green forests, got cut off from the mainland. This has been the fate of many families in Bamanghat in Jalpaiguri, four days after incessant rains and a series of landslides hit Darjeeling's Mirik, Jalpaiguri's Nagrakata and Alipurduar.

"We did not get any relief. Forget relief, we did not have anyone to bury the bodies. We dug the graves ourselves, there was no other option," Rupa Naik, a tea garden worker from Bamanghat told ET. "My brother-in-law is in deep sense of grief after the death of his children, including his seven-year-old son. So many people lost their families in the blink of any eye," she said.

Rupa was carrying a huge sack of puffed rice back home from Nagrakata to Bamanghat, waiting in queue to catch a ride in NDRF-run boats, which are helping the residents to cross the rivers. Many others in their localities are doing the same, carrying their grocery items back from the mainland.

Tea garden workers and residents of Bamanghat and adjoining areas of Nagrakata in Jalpaiguri district, one of the worst affected, have been isolated from the mainland as rivers have swelled. The bridge on river Gathia has been broken and Bamanghat tea gardens and forests, where tribal tea garden workers live, had been cut off. The Civil Defence and NDRF are running boat services to help villagers and relief workers cross the three river junction of Kurtijhora, Diana and Gathia rivers.

According to official figures, four-five lives have been lost. But the residents claimed that they have seen at least 20-25 bodies in the area.

Water has receded but left a trail of mud and garbage deposited in the houses, damaging all the stored food items like rice. There is hardly any drinking water and what is available is polluted, said an ICDS worker who went to the village with relief material.

Meanwhile, tractor owners are charging huge amounts (around Rs 2,000 to just cross the river) to take relief and people from the mainland to Bamanghat.

Ajit Lohar and his friends said they could not reach the mainland as the tractor-owners were asking for exorbitant amounts of money to cross the river. "I have family members. I wanted to help the villagers as well but was forced to pay a lot of money to carry relief," Lohar told ET.

In Nagrakata, another concrete bridge collapsed and the road has caved in. NDRF and the state civil defence are rebuilding the bridge and creating barricades with boulders.

MURMU ATTACK

Nagrakata is where BJP MP Khagen Murmu and BJP MLA Shankar Ghosh were assaulted by miscreants. Murmu still remains in a critical state and politics in the state has been revolving around the attack. No one has been arrested yet.

BJP's Union minister Sukanta visited Murmu and Ghosh at hospital and said Murmu's facial bone is fractured and he is not allowed to speak. Majumdar has demanded the arrest of the Trinamool miscreants.

Meanwhile, Governor CV Ananda Bose, who has submitted a report to President Droupadi Murmu, on the rain havoc North Bengal, deplored the attack on Murmu and said stringent action should be taken against the miscreants.

"This kind of near anarchy cannot continue in any corner of Bengal. Bengal Police is not functioning. People are scared of goondas. That is what I have been observing in the last three years. Bengal has to come back to normal," he said.

Meanwhile, in Coochbehar's Ghoksadanga, two persons have died in a wild boar attack in the last two days.