His voice quivered as he spoke. His fingers tightly held on to a photograph. His feet were covered with soot and sand.
"They are Rohan and Shraddha," Pankaj Patel muttered hesitatingly in Gujarati, pointing at the photograph as a dozen heads poured in, trying to get a glimpse of the faces in the picture. "They are my brother's children. Rohan is ten, Shraddha is eight years old. They were here last night at the Civil Hospital. Have you seen them?"
The police officials had a heart. They advised him: "Bhai, tame ward number B4 ma jao, tyaan badha jhakhmi (Go to ward number B4, the injured...)
The policemen kept speaking, but Pankaj had already closed his ears to the world. These were answers he had got over a dozen times. They were ones that brought little solace to his frantic search.
As he turned around, he looked heavenwards and gently shut his eyes. Tears rolled down his cheeks.
Then, he shook his head and whispered in despair: "All they found were three little legs and a piece of her frock."
Less than 12 hours ago, Rohan and Shraddha - dressed in a bright red frock - had happily jaunted to the Civil Hospital, their young minds oblivious that their city was under attack. Their grandmother Champaben worked there as a help. So along with their dadaji Purushottam, every evening, they brought her dinner. A routine they followed everyday.
"They were very fond of her. But they couldn't meet her at home because by the time she returned from work, the children would be asleep," Pankaj's father explained.
We kept advancing rapidly towards their nearby chawl. Pankaj led the way, his gaze fixed on the ground, mumbling repeatedly, "All they found were three little legs and a piece of her frock."
The morning after the serial blasts, a local newspaper Sandesh, had graphic photographs of blood and gore splashed on their front page. They were photographs newspapers would generally avoid printing keeping in mind that such images could leave an undesirable stamp on children and could disturb readers and most importantly, the family members of the dead.
It was one such photograph that made me cringe when I saw it, but it brought a sense of closure for the Patels. A male victim whose entire body had been blown to bits; what remained were only his shoulders and a head covered in blood and innards. The face was badly disfigured. But the family was quite certain. It was their Purushottam.
When we reached their residence, all hell had already broken lose. Family members wept inconsolably. Women beat their chests. Shrieks of pain filled the air. Rohan and Shraddha's father had collapsed to the ground; his clothes soiled by the wet earth, muddied by overnight rains. The men lifted him up and made him lie down on a cot in the courtyard under a tree. Someone, splashed water on his face to help him regain consciousness.
When he did, Pankaj told his brother, "All they found were three little legs and a piece of her frock. You need to go and identify whatever you can."
A day later, I learnt Pankaj worked in the morgue of the Civil Hospital.
Twenty-one bombs had ripped the city of Ahmedabad late in the evening of July 26. The most devastating explosion was at the Civil Hospital, where for the first time in India, terrorists had dared to violate the sanctity of the red cross. A perverse plan hatched by the terror group who had parked a car bomb right outside the Trauma Centre of the government hospital. One that would cause maximum deaths and shake the conscience of the country.
It wasn't one of those "low intensity" bombs. The courtyard outside the Trauma Centre resembled a war zone. Motorcycles, scooters and bicycles were charred to its metal skeleton. Chappals, shoes, bags, pieces of clothes littered the area.
The stench of blood and burnt flesh was over-whelming. Bottles of phenyl had been emptied on the tarred road, but couldn't overcome the smell.
The hospital walls were still splattered with blood. So powerful was the blast, a piece of metal was flung over 30 metres away and hung from a neem tree.
I walked around the area and it was completely covered with soot and blood; every square foot of land was strewn with nuts and bolts which had been tightly packed inside the bomb. When the device exploded, each bolt acted like a bullet travelling at over 2000 feet/second before plunging into the bodies of men, women and little children. Five small LPG cylinders had also been used to generate excess heat and more power.
A visit inside the hospital and I returned even more shaken. Children lay on their beds writhing in pain. Many had suffered 3rd degree burns. The only comfort they had were their parents who were gently caressing them, assuring, all was fine. Many others were herded inside the Plastic Surgery ward, waiting to undergo complicated operations.
As I meandered back to the blast site, a thousand questions zoomed in my head.
How dare they target a hospital? Are all our public places now on their hit list? What about old-age homes? Kindergarten premises, schools and colleges? Will terrorists even make them targets? Isn't it unfair to expect an ill-equipped ordinary police constable to be the foot-soldier in this war? How can we win this war against terror when we don't even know who the enemy is? Indian Mujahideen, SIMI, HuJI. The same names of terror keep coming back, but why isn't anyone behind bars? Are our lives so cheap?
As I absent-mindedly trudged around, all of a sudden, I was jolted back to reality.
My foot had sunk into something soft. Mud, I thought. I looked down. It was a chunk of burnt human flesh.
A week after the blasts, sitting on a window seat on the flight back to Mumbai, I looked out and breathed a sigh of relief. Up above the gray monsoon clouds, it was a temporary escape from the happenings of the last few days.
I was tired. I pushed my seat behind and closed my eyes.
But it's that one image that kept returning to my mind.
Three little legs and a piece of her frock.
