Carnage claims second son

NARESH JANA

Nandigram, March 19: Suhasini Mondal stood at her doorstep, holding two cups her footballer son Pushpendu had won some months ago. The hands that had welcomed the triumphant 26-year-old many a time could hardly bear the weight of the trophies. A cycle van carrying Pushpendu’s body arrived at his home in Gangra last evening. Pushpendu was the youngest child of Suhasini, 60, and Pulinbehari, 68. They have three other sons. The Mondals, though, are no stranger to tragedy. Pushpendu, who was shot in the stomach, is the second member the family has lost to the agitation against land acquisition in Nandigram. The body of 32-year-old Bharat Mondal, Pushpendu’s cousin, was found floating in Talpatti canal with a bullet hole in his stomach after the January 7 violence. Suhasini placed the cups beside her son’s head and broke down. “I don’t want these prizes any more. Every time I see them, it reminds me of Pushpendu,” she said. Nearly 1,500 villagers accompanied Pushpendu’s body home from the Tamluk hospital morgue. The body, in a decomposed state, was kept in the courtyard of the two-storey tiled house of the Mondals. The well-to-do farmers, who are Congress supporters, own about 18 bighas. Nearly 200 youths from Ma Ganga Club, where Pushpendu used to play football, came to take his body around 8 this morning for cremation along with about 2,000 residents of Sonachura, Kendamari and other neighbouring villages. Pushpendu, who was training to be a motor mechanic, left home for Bhangabera bridge in the small hours of Wednesday along with brother Dibyendu and other villagers. “We were together in Sonachura when the police marched in around 10 am. Then suddenly things spun out of control. I could not see anything as my eyes were burning from tear gas. We were all running helter-skelter when the police started firing at us. It was a little before 11 am when I saw Pushpendu for the last time running towards the Talpatti canal. I ran towards Mondalpara,” recalled Dibyendu. http://www.telegraphindia.com