The deadly hazards of migration: 2 Bihari barbers killed in Manipur explosion
Imphal: how many times in the past have you read of Bihari migrants caught up and killed or maimed in distant lands during a bomb explosion or an accident. The fact is it is a recurring phenomenon largely due to the fact that the Bihari migrant now reaches every corner of the country. One of the hazards of leaving home is indeed being caught up in quarrels and mishaps that the migrant would have had no part of, if he was at home.
According to news reports, in one such incident, when five persons were killed, including two school girls in a powerful explosion in Imphal, the Manipur capital, at around 2 pm on Monday, two barbers from Bihar lost their lives. Official sources in Imphal said the explosive device was planted in a scooter that was parked just outside a barber’s shop in the Sangaakthan locality of the capital city in Imphal East district.
Some time ago after the bomb explosions in Mumbai, reports started pouring in about the deaths of Biharis as the bodies got identified. In some cases, the relatives neither had the means nor the heart to bring the body home, cremating the dead in distant lands and returning empty-handed.
A news report from 15 July mentions just such a case ‘Kishan Mandal (35), along with two of his friends, was sitting on a motorcycle outside a jewellery shop at Zaveri Bazaar where he worked along with his brother. He even lived in that shop. Just as his friends walked away, the bomb exploded, annihilating him. All that his friends could recover was his severed head. “We could manage to find only his head from the blast site. We could not even take his last remains to his native place at Darbhanga in Bihar as it would have taken more than 18 hours to reach there,” said Uttam Jain, one of his friends from the jewellery store. They performed his last rites at Chandanwadi crematorium in thye city.’
While the Thackerays of the Senas never forget to mention a likely suspect from Bihar or Uttar Pradesh, do they ever bother to spend a calm moment in remembrance of the poor migrant caught up in someone else’s conflicts?
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