KOLKATA: Fifteen-year-old Sonali Haldar used to help her parents, Banti Haldar (35) and Jhuma Haldar (33), every morning at the kachori shop on Gobinda Khatik Road in Tangra.
On Tuesday, the Class-IX girl had to appear for an exam at a local school, so she came to the shop late — this is what saved her life, said Jhuma. Worried over the future of their only child, the couple had collected money to start the shop.
Barely a couple of hours after Banti died of electrocution, Sonali recounted how her father woke up around 4am daily in the past six years to prepare kachori.
“Many school students used to visit our shop daily for breakfast around 6am. That was the same routine my father followed even on Tuesday. Earlier, we ran a shop beside the one where my father died on Tuesday. We paid Rs 5,000 as rent for the shop. Later, we decided to have a shop of our own and we finally managed to buy one after the pandemic. For this, my mother worked as a domestic help while my father took odd jobs even during the lockdown. All our dreams for a better life have been shattered now,” the victim’s daughter said.
Jhuma was inconsolable. “I was working beside him. There were still children eating kachoris and I was washing plates. He managed to yell and warn me when the fire broke out. While trying to flee, he somehow touched the shutter and got electrocuted. We paid Rs 40,000 to buy the shop, but a few market committee members asked us to pay Rs 3.5 lakh as salami. We were even threatened on June 13. I borrowed the money and paid up,” said Jhuma.
She demanded both the shop and the money to secure her daughter’s future. None of the market committee members responded to her allegations.
Both Sonali and Jhuma said that cops had arrived early as the police station was barely 80 metres away, but the fire brigade had come late.
“My husband was being taken to the hospital when the fire brigade finally arrived. Maybe it was too late to have saved him. But at least I could have reasoned that everything was done to save him,” said Jhuma.
