Jyoti had shifted to her husband’s native village in Kanpur when she discovered she was pregnant with her third child. Only 20 days ago, after giving birth seven months ago, she had returned to her husband Ajay in Delhi’s Najafgarh with her three children.
On Friday, while they were asleep, Jyoti (28) and her three sons – seven-year-old Aryan, five-year-old Rishabh and seven-month-old Priyansh – died as their house at Kharkhari Nahar village in Najafgarh collapsed under the weight of a Neem tree during Friday morning’s heavy rain in the Capital.
Ajay, who suffered minor injuries, was discharged from the hospital by 2 pm. Half an hour later, he was at the mortuary of Rau Tula Ram Hospital, waiting to take the bodies of his children and wife home for the last time.
A labourer working in the fields, Ajay had been living alone one-room tubewell house in the middle of farmland where he worked while his family was in Uttar Pradesh. He was looking for a bigger house and a school for the children, said his relatives.
“I got the call around 6 am from his father. He said that Ajay’s thekedar (contractor) called about a tree falling on his house,” said Sukhdev Kushwaha (65), Ajay’s uncle.
Ajay’s cousin Ankush (20), who lives in Kanpur, rushed to Delhi this morning. “Ajay and his family used to live in a rented room in a building before Jyoti became pregnant with their third son. After she moved to Kanpur with the children, Ajay moved to the farmland.”
“Ajay had come to Delhi around 15 years ago, and was working with contractor Devraj Singh for the past two years as a farm labourer,” a relative added.
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Late Friday, Delhi Government sanctioned Rs 25 lakh as ex-gratia relief to Ajay.
Deputy Commissioner of Police (Dwarka) Ankit Singh said a PCR call was received at 5.26 am about the house collapse. When the police reached the spot, they found that gusty winds had uprooted a Neem tree, which collapsed onto a small house. A family of five was trapped under the debris. “Police and fire department teams pulled the family out of the rubble and shifted them to the hospital where four were declared dead,” the officer added.
