Jatinder, a young man from J&K’s Bhaderwah district was working as labour supervisor at the NTPC Tapovan project in Uttarakhand when the glacier burst and flood hit the dam site. He is still missing and his family has appealed to the government to help them locate him or “at least get his body.”
Jatinder, who was working as labour supervisor of Hyderabad-based Rithwik Projects Private Limited at the NTPC Tapovan project, had left from Reni village for dam site along with 20 labourers, from where he made a video call at 10.32am to his home.
Jatinder had told his mother on phone that he was missing them, especially his 3-year old daughter and promised to return soon, but unfortunately that destiny had something else in store for him.
Jatinder, a resident of Bhara village in Southa panchayt of Jammu and Kashmir’s additional district Bhaderwah— the youngest among four brothers— had left his village one and half months back to work as labour supervisor at the dam site in Uttarakhand.
His mother Bhagwana Devi (70) said: “He made a video call to me on Friday and said he will come back soon but after that day I have been waiting for my youngest son and the only thing everyone is saying is that he is gone missing in the floods.”
“My husband called me on Sunday at 10.32am and talked for just two minutes, thereafter he again made a call at 10.35am which I could not pick up as I was busy in household chores,” said Meena Devi (27) wife of Jatinder.
“I will regret for rest of my life that why I didn’t pick up that call as at 11.30 am, we came to know there is a disaster at the dam site in Tapovan. Thereafter, I made thousands of calls but to no avail,” Meena said, adding that she will wait for her husband till her last breath.
The family demands that administration should extend them help to locate him. “My six brothers including our cousins are at Tapovan dam site for last 5 days searching for our youngest sibling Jatinder but they informed us that there are tons of debris at the site of incident where according to eyewitnesses he got drowned and buried along with 20 labourers,” said Sunil Kumar, his elder brother.
“The only thing we now want from the administration is that they should speed the rescue operation to clear the debris so that at least we can get the body of our youngest sibling,” Sunil added.