Uttarakhand tragedy: One Gujarati Modi forgot to rescue

Ramku Lal from Junagadh was rescued from the rubbles of Rambara 12 days the disaster

Whether Narendra Modi saved 15,000 Gujaratis or less from the flood-hit Kedar valley is a matter of national debate now. But, for all the Gujaratis he saved, Modi certainly seemed to have missed one.

A week after the Gujarat chief minister came and went back, Ramku Lal was rescued from Rambara, near Kedarnath, last Friday.  Police constables guarding the tall, lean man from Junagadh in Gujarat’s Saurashtra region, said, “He was  found lying among bodies by a relief party. He is in a state of shock.”

Lal was made to write down his name as he is not speaking. The doctor at the Guptkashi government hospital said, “He must be 55-60 years of age. He is physically fine. But, he is not speaking and seems to be in a disturbed mental state. We are not able to say if this condition was there before or is a result of trauma.”

Lal was resting outside the hospital with two constables guarding him to prevent him from loitering away. The hospital does not have space to keep him inside and had discharged him on Saturday.

After a while, he became worried about his clothes and wanted to wash them and asked the cops for water. As one of the constable gave him a bottle of water, he gestured asking why was he wasting drinking water.

Even as he was finishing with his washing, Lal’s rescue call had come. The constables received instructions to take him to the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam rest house.

Additional district magistrate Harak Singh Rawat and his team, who were waiting, quickly put him in a car. “We are taking him to the helipad. We have received instructions to send him to Dehradun immediately. They will take care of him,” Rawat said.

Lal was particular about his clothes. Though wet, he held on to them tightly like he had held on to dear life amidst death and destruction for twelve long days before he was found.