Manoj Kumar is a resident of Lucknow and is survived by his wife, and teenaged son and daughter.
Hyderabad: Families of the SLBC tunnel collapse victims have urged the Centre, and the states from which they hailed, as well as the Telangana government, to declare the workers as martyrs who gave up their lives in the cause of nation-building.
While the body of Gurpreet Singh was found and handed over to his family in Punjab, the families of the seven missing workers are still waiting on information about their loved ones.
In their appeal, the families said they were requesting the Centre, and the governments of Punjab, Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Jammu & Kashmir, and Telangana to declare martyr status to all the deceased persons as they were involved in a project of state and national interest designed to provide drinking water to drought-prone areas in Telangana and to Hyderabad city.
Ashish Tripathi, brother-in-law of Manoj Kumar, a project engineer with JP Associates, the engineering firm contracted to build the tunnel, said the families have realised that none of the still missing seven persons were alive. “We are not blaming anyone for what happened. We know they are not alive. We are feeling helpless as we have no information officially on their fate. All we know is they should not be forgotten,” he told Deccan Chronicle.
Manoj Kumar is a resident of Lucknow and is survived by his wife, and teenaged son and daughter.
Tripathi said the appeal of the families to Prime Minister Modi, and Chief Ministers Yogi Adityanath of UP, Bhagwant Mann of Punjab, Heman Soren of Jharkhand, Omar Abdullah of J&K, and A. Revanth Reddy of Telangana, is that the distressed families should be fully supported. “We also need to know something about at least by when the bodies can be found and retrieved. We are in the dark and need help,” Tripathi said.
Infograph
SLBC tunnel missing workers
Manoj Kumar and Srinivas (from UP); Sandeep Sahu, Jagta Xess, Keshwer Sahu, Santosh Sahu, Anuj Sahu (all from Jharkhand); Sunny Singh (Jammu & Kashmir)
Body found
Gurpreet Singh (Punjab)
