Sandeep Chauhan, the father of seven-year-old girl Garima Chauhan, who lost her life in a road accident at the Kanhaiya Nagar metro station on Thursday morning, said, “For three hours, I searched for my daughter, it was only an hour before she died that I could find her, lying unconscious, surrounded with beeping machines and oxygen cylinder.”
Waiting outside the mortuary of the Babu Jag Jivan Ram hospital in Jahangirpuri, Sandeep accompanied by the family members shared how he had to run from pillar to post to find his daughter.
A poor father’s dream of raising an educated child, came crashing when he saw her struggling for her life at the ICU of the Mahant Gurumukh Singh Hospital in Punjabi Bagh area in the afternoon. The apple of her grandfather’s eye, Garima was crushed when her school cab was hit by a speeding milk tanker at the Kanhaiya Nagar metro station in the morning.
“Half an hour after the accident, the van driver called to inform that my daughter is injured. He did not tell me where she was admitted. Since he was incoherent, I rushed to her school, Kendra Vidyalaya but the teachers informed us that she did not come to school. Then I went to the Deep Chand Hospital where other children, injured in the accident were getting treatment. My daughter was not found there too. Finally, I was informed by the police that my daughter is admitted at the Dr Mahant Gurumukh Hospital in Punjabi Bagh.”
Working in a private job, Sandeep said that Garima was his first child followed by a three-and-a-half-year old son.
“She came into this world, fighting her way. Since my wife had a Caesaren operation, Garima was born premature. like any child of her age, she dreamt of becoming a doctor or a teacher,” added Sandeep.
Criticising the driver of the school van, Garima’s uncle said, “We used to often stop the driver, Vijay and ask him not to put more children in the van. Since he used to pick children from 5 km radius, by the time, he used to pick Garima, the van was overcrowded.”
While Sandeep completed the formalities of the post mortem of his daughter, his father, sitting under the shade of a tree shared how he celebrated the day when Garima was born. “For me, Garima was an angel,” said Randhir Chauhan, grandfather of Garima.
He further said, “Garima was a good child. She used to study hard and come first in her class.”