Thousands of pilgrims especially women and children, who were stranded and rescued from flood-ravaged Uttarakhand, need immediate medical attention including psychological care because most of them are looking mentally disturbed.
Talking to The Pioneer Puja Thakur, who was desperately looking for her 12-year-old son Sudhanshu distributing pamphlets after being rescued along with her mother by the Army on June 21, said that as nature's fury came she along with other pilgrims including 14 residents from Vikasnagar, Dehradun rushed to a safer place. Although her 70-year-old mother Radhika Devi was unable to rush so she held her hand.
Meanwhile, another pilgrim, who was also running, held her son's hand, saying that he will bring him so she left her son to assist her mother and since then she had not seen Sudhanshu.
The person, to whom she had left her son, broke a leg at Guptkashi call centre. During enquiry, he told her that as they were running to a safer place, after a few hours Sudhanshu said that he could not run anymore because he got exhausted, so he left Sudhanshu with other waiting pilgrims in the dense forest on the night of June 17.
A sobbing Puja further disclosed that a family, which is also from Vikasnagar, having three daughters namely Anamika, Manju and Sunita along with their parents was also with her group. While stranded, their parents got ill due to spine-chilling cold. To warm them, these three sisters were running here and there. Meanwhile, they found a house deserted perhaps as the owners had died or left for safer place but other claimant demanded Rs 2,500 per bed. Meanwhile, their parents succumbed to nature's wrath so the hapless sisters tried to push their dead bodies into river from hills but these got stuck in tree. later they could not dare to free the bodies from the tree amid rain.
Another pilgrim, 50-year-old E Suraiyyaswami from Anandpur, Andhra Pradesh, rescued on June 23, was looking mentally disturbed while recounting the horror in which he lost his 20-year-old son Virbhadra Swami who died of a heart attack while climbing a mountain. His son was unable to believe the tragedy and died in his hands within an hour on June 17.
Since then Suraiyyaswami was carrying his son's body with a sense of fear about the explanation he would give to his family. On June 23, he was rescued by helicopter from Ganeshchatti nearby Gaurikund. Mentally distressed, he said still he is unable to believe the incident which happened in front of his eyes.