These hard-hitting times of the Covid19 pandemic are not been easy on many of us. For the last one and a half years, the nation is grappling with a constantly looming scare of death and destruction. On one hand, where these times have brought out the public’s humanity towards each other on multiple occasions, there have been times when we even got to face the inhumane side of citizens.
However, even during such a time, police officers of our country do not fail to win everyone’s hearts through their humane and helping personality, which is exactly what senior Indian Police Service officer, Mr. Amitabh Thakur did, when he helped an ailing elderly woman who suddenly lost her husband in the middle of a train journey.
THE HEARTBREAKING INCIDENT
During a recent heartbreaking event that happened in the middle of a long train journey, a 72-year-old passenger named Arun Mukherjee suddenly suffered a massive heart attack and collapsed on the train while it was approaching Khurda Road Station, near Bhubaneshwar, Odisha.
His wife, Uttara Mukherjee was in a state of deep shock and couldn’t understand what had just happened. The elderly couple had boarded the Yeshwantpur-Bhagalpur train to return to their home in Jamalpur, Bihar. They were returning from their son’s home in Bangalore. Mr. Mukherjee, who has his own business in Munger, Bihar, suddenly became ill and fell inside the train.
NOT A SINGLE HELPING HAND ON THE TRAIN
As the incident unfolded, fellow passengers in the train suspected that the old man had died due to coronavirus, which made them back out of the situation completely. Nobody wanted to come in contact with the supposedly infected person or his wife.
“I was crying indiscriminately and pleading for help. I could not walk because I have severe arthritis. But all our co-passengers made a distance from us and called the railway authorities to remove us from the compartment. I called my relatives in Kolkata, who requested the railway authorities to allow us to travel to Kharagpur, which was just three hours from Khurda. But they did not pay attention,” stated Mrs. Mukherjee.
She was devastated as she had recently received the shock of her life. On top of that, she herself was ailing from arthritis. However, none of it mattered to the people around as they decided to call the authorities and get the couple thrown out of the train.
“Many passengers in our reserved compartment protested and asked the railway authorities to drop us off at the next station. I was forced to land at Khurda Road station in the evening with my deceased husband.”
SOS REACHES THE IPS OFFICER
As the old lady was left alone with her deceased husband’s body at Khurda station with no acquaintances nearby, owing to the weekend curfew in Odisha, a few volunteers from India Cares, an online helpline on Twitter, came to know about her suffering and immediately called up IPS officer Mr. Amitabh Thakur for help.
Mr.Thakur, currently posted as the Inspector General of Police (Operations) in Odisha Police, immediately contacted the officials of Khurda district administration and requested them to help the elderly lady, in whatever way they can. The administration then took the matter into their hands and rescued the woman.
Since it was quite late in the night, the Khurda hospital refused to get the post mortem of the body done. “I requested the District Collector, who asked the Chief District Medical Officer to facilitate postmortem. We also ensured that she did not face any trouble till her family members reach Odisha,” stated Mr. Thakur, in an interview.
Had it not been for the IPS officer and his help, the overall situation would have been extremely difficult for the elderly lady. But Mr. Thakur’s helping hand clearly depicted that a deed of humanity goes a long way.
