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Ludhiana factory collapse: Missing firefighter Sukhdev was blessed with a daughter a month ago
“He was a doting father. His other two daughters keep asking about him. We find it hard to hide our tears from his wife.”
His youngest daughter turned a month old yesterday, but he was not with his family to celebrate the moment. The grieving parents of missing fireman Sukhdev Singh, caught in an agonising wait for six-long days, on Saturday said that his 35-year-old wife, Kamlesh Kaur, is still oblivious to the tragedy and keeps sending her daughter’s pictures to her husband’s Whatsapp number.
“We have only told her (Kamlesh) that her husband is injured and is not allowed to meet anyone in the hospital. She has been worried as she could not talk to her husband even after their daughter turned a month old. She kept sending pictures of the infant to Sukhdev on Whatsapp and was disappointed as there was no response,” said Sukhdev’s father Parkash Singh.
Sukhdev’s other two daughters are aged 8 and 6. “He was a doting father. His daughters keep asking about him. We find it hard to hide our tears from his wife, but she already suspects we are hiding something from her,” added Parkash.
“It was on October 24 that he was blessed with a third daughter. He was so happy, in just a month, our life has turned upside down,” he said.
Sukhdev is among the three firemen who were involved in the firefighting operations on November 20 at Gola Plastic Factory when the building came crashing down on them. While 13 bodies have been removed from the rubble, there is no trace of firemen Sukhdev, Manohar Lal and Manpreet Vicky still.
Manpreet’s father Malkit Singh said he (Manpreet) was their only son and the only support. “His mother is handicapped and has difficulty walking, I am retired. Manpreet was just 24 years old and unmarried, he had not even completed his Bachelors and was in the final year. Why has destiny played such a cruel joke with us?” he said.
Missing fireman Manohar Lal’s 21-year-old daughter Tamanna is still hopeful that her father will come out alive. Camping at the mishap site with her mother and brother, she still hopes her father will be found.
Even as rescue teams are working relentlessly to search for the missing firemen, the patience of the families ran out today and they started accusing the teams of NDRF of “slow” operations.
