A sense of incomprehensible loss mounts on Mahipal Singh Gautam. In a voice that’s almost a whisper, he says, “What wrong did my son do that his life was cut short so cruelly?"
Abhisek Gautam, his son, was one of the two victims of the Ghazipur landfill tragedy, when part of the mountain of garbage collapsed on passers-by on September 1.
Abhisek and his friends had gone to buy fruits from the Ghazipur fruit market. "They were coming back when the landfill collapsed," his father says.
Gautam is still dealing with the death — not quite sure how to. He continues staring at his feet. “I got Rs 3 lakh as compensation — Rs 2 lakh from the Delhi government and Rs 1 lakh from EDMC. Yes, I have the money, but my son will never come back.”
The Ghazipur landfill tragedy was waiting to happen — a dumpsite towering to a height of a 15-storey building. And despite the loss of two lives, the government is reluctant to mend its ways.
In the furore that ensued afterwards, tall promises were made — but the mountain still stands.
A day after the incident, Neema Bhagat, EDMC mayor, paid a visit to the grieving father and assured him that waste from the Ghazipur landfill would be removed as soon as possible.
“Today my son could have been with me, had the government taken the site’s growing height seriously. Even today I see tonnes of waste being dumped at the site. I don’t know what EDMC or the Delhi government will do in future, but I would have felt better if this landfill — a reminder of my son’s grim death — no longer stood here,” says Mahipal abjectly.
