"I believe my son will be back," said Sunita Verma, the mother of missing 22-year old Raghuvir Verma who was on board the AN32 aircraft with 28 others which disappeared over the Bay of Bengal on 22 July, in a low voice sitting in her quarters in Port Blair right next to the airport.
Wife of a former police constable and mother to two sons of which Raghuvir was the younger, Sunita had a blank look on her face when I first visited the family four days after the plane went down. It was evening and the cramped looking living room was full of empathetic friends, relatives and neighbours.
"Her tears have dried up," one of them said, "she hasn’t stopped crying ever since heard about it on TV".
I was taken aback by her resolve when Sunita uttered those words looking straight at my eyes.
All I felt for her then, from an untouchable and safe distance of an observer of yet another tragedy in my journalistic career, was deep sympathy. But I am not so sure now.
Three days later and a week after the plane went missing, when Raghuvir’s family made the fantastic claim that they discovered his phone ringing till noon that day though no one picked it up, all I visualised was Sunita’s face which was desperate to cling to hope.
"It was she who first found out that the phone was ringing last evening. We did not pay much attention to her and thought it to be a rant of a depressed mind. But when we called that number which remained switched off since the plane disappeared, it was ringing. Miracles happen, don’t they?” said Lakhichand Verma, Raghuvir’s father.
What's even more baffling was the second claim which came from Shankar, Raghuvir’s friend back home.
"Here’s the screen shot of the mobile messaging App Raghuvir used and it shows that he last viewed his messages on the morning of 26th July. That's four days after the plane went down!" he said while holding out his phone in support of his claim.
"We have said all of this to the air force officials from the Andaman and Nicobar Command," informed Ranvir, Raghuvir’s brother, adding, "they have promised us that would get back with their probe findings within a day."
30/07/16 Sougata Mukhopadhyay/News18
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Wife of a former police constable and mother to two sons of which Raghuvir was the younger, Sunita had a blank look on her face when I first visited the family four days after the plane went down. It was evening and the cramped looking living room was full of empathetic friends, relatives and neighbours.
"Her tears have dried up," one of them said, "she hasn’t stopped crying ever since heard about it on TV".
I was taken aback by her resolve when Sunita uttered those words looking straight at my eyes.
All I felt for her then, from an untouchable and safe distance of an observer of yet another tragedy in my journalistic career, was deep sympathy. But I am not so sure now.
Three days later and a week after the plane went missing, when Raghuvir’s family made the fantastic claim that they discovered his phone ringing till noon that day though no one picked it up, all I visualised was Sunita’s face which was desperate to cling to hope.
"It was she who first found out that the phone was ringing last evening. We did not pay much attention to her and thought it to be a rant of a depressed mind. But when we called that number which remained switched off since the plane disappeared, it was ringing. Miracles happen, don’t they?” said Lakhichand Verma, Raghuvir’s father.
What's even more baffling was the second claim which came from Shankar, Raghuvir’s friend back home.
"Here’s the screen shot of the mobile messaging App Raghuvir used and it shows that he last viewed his messages on the morning of 26th July. That's four days after the plane went down!" he said while holding out his phone in support of his claim.
"We have said all of this to the air force officials from the Andaman and Nicobar Command," informed Ranvir, Raghuvir’s brother, adding, "they have promised us that would get back with their probe findings within a day."
30/07/16 Sougata Mukhopadhyay/News18
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