Poor Bihari victims largely ignored- Let pay our homage to them

Patna: During the Mumbai terror attacks, the Taj, Oberoi-Trident and Nariman House attracted all the attention where the victims were either
foreigners or the rich, but in the midst of this gunbattle and explosions, the victims of the first attack at CST, where passengers, mostly from the middle class and the poor, fell to bullets of the terrorists, were ignored.

There are reports that at least nine people hailing from Nawada district alone were killed and many more are missing. Most of them belonged to very poor families and there has been no official communication about those killed and the whereabouts of the missing persons.

Home secretary Afzal Amanullah said there was no official communication about the deaths of Biharis in Mumbai. Maybe the officials have not yet been able to collect full information, he added. Nawada SP Vinod Kumar said he was still awaiting official communication. He however, said he had been informed about six people of the district who lost their lives in the Mumbai attacks.

Three people of Phulwarisharif, on the outskirts of Patna, are reportedly missing when they went to catch a train at CST minutes before the attack. They are Mohd Husain of Khalilpur village and two others Tajuddin and Sadique. It has not been not confirmed if they escaped or fell to bullets.

Four more persons of Nawada, three of Gaya and one of Siwan were also reportedly missing. Their family members have been trying frantically to find out their whereabouts, but in vain.

A pall of gloom descended on the home of Shah Waliullah of Dhab village in Nawada who lost six members of his family. They included his son Ilyas, daughter-in-law Shakila, grandsons Sarfarz and Murtaza and two relatives Abbas and Arif.

All of them were coming home to attend a marriage in the family. Octogenarian Waliullah is shaken and women in the family are crying and cursing the terrorists, "Allah unhe jahannum ki aag mein jalaye (may God burn them in the hell's fire).

In the nearby Akbarpur village in Nawada, Sahdeo Yadav's grandson Aditya was killed in the attack. Ram Sundar and Vinod of another village in the same district also became terror victims.