On October 30, Vadodara, Gujarat celebrated Chatt puja, when the British-era bridge – Morbi bridge -with 500 men, women, and children collapsed taking down more than 140 lives.
These lives, mostly women and children, who had come to celebrate their loved ones were lost to a devastating tragedy.
In this chaos, a few men and women came as good samaritans and saved more than 50 lives by swimming to and fro each time and bringing people to safety.
These men – Taufeeq Bhai, Naeem Sheikh, and Hussain Pathan – and many others whose names are unknown did not care if the people whose lives they were saving belonged to different religions. All they cared about was they were saving precious lives, human lives.
Naeem Sheikh swam, along with five of his friends to save lives. Speaking to the media, he said that one of his friends lost his life as he had drunk too much water while swimming back and fro to save lives.
“We (his friends) just had one thing in our mind – to save as many as possible,” said Naeem.
As the 150-year-old bridge cables collapsed, Taufeeq Bhai and Hussain Pathan saw many hanging onto the suspension while others were crying for help as they struggled to float.
While Hussain Pathan rescued 35 lives to the hospital, Taufiq, an expert swimmer, swam 50 lives to safety.
According to The Quint, ambulance driver Hussain helped carry several people to the civil hospital, despite his own cousin perishing in the tragedy. Milan Prakashbhai, a local helped carry the injured and dead to the hospital all night. Haseena, a social worker at the civic hospital helped identified bodies by cleaning the blood stains. Ravi and his friends provided food and water to the injured.
Twitter reacts
The Twitter world has not stopped praising the efforts of these brave men and women while questioning those who have always spoken against the Muslim community.
Police on Monday arrested nine persons, including four from the Oreva group that was managing the suspension bridge, and filed a case against firms tasked with the maintenance and operation of the British-era structure.
Video footage emerged of the moments before Sunday evening’s deadly collapse, showing the bridge snapping in a few seconds, taking down scores of visitors seen walking on the swaying structure which had reopened six days ago after extensive repair but sans a fitness certificate.
