‘Darkness is dissipating’: Wives flooded with relief as 95 fishermen begin voyage home
Times of India | 6 January 2025
123 Kakdwip (South 24-Parganas): A relieved smile brightened Brihaspati Maity's face as she finished her phone call with her husband Nilu. Brihaspati has been able to speak to Nilu as many as five times in the last two days. This is in stark contrast to Brihaspati's desperation over the past two-and-a-half-months in which she had slowly lost all hopes of ever speaking to her husband. All she knew was that Nilu had been imprisoned in Bangladesh.
Sitting with her one-month-old daughter on her lap at her Akhyapara home in Kakdwip, the 30-year-old Brihaspati told TOI: "The darkness in our lives is dissipating. When my husband went missing, I was in the advanced stages of pregnancy. Had I not been helped by relatives and neighbours, I don't know how I would have run the family or even paid the hospital bills. On Saturday night, after months, I could see Nilu over a video call. He wanted to see our daughter. I tried to wake up my sleeping child, but she started crying. Nilu asked me what I had named her. He was very happy that I had chosen ‘Sukanya' as her name."
Brihaspati's is not the only Akhyapara home which has been brightened by the Indian Coast Guard's announcement that the 95 jailed fishermen were finally returning aboard an ICG ship. Some, like Joyeka Das, said they would never let their husbands go out to the sea again even if it meant the family would starve.
The ICG on Sunday posted on X: "In a mutual exchange of fishermen coordinated between the Indian Coast Guard and Bangladesh Coast Guard, ICG Ships Varad and Amrit Kaur repatriated 95 Indian fishermen and four fishing boats, and handed over 90 Bangladeshi fishermen, including 12 rescued from the sunken boat ‘Kaushik'." The fishermen are likely to reach Sagardwip late in the night.
Soma Das, whose husband Niranjan is among those returning home, said, "I have three daughters. The elder one is in class V. I have been able to pay her school fees. But I have no means to pay fees for my second one, who is in class II. The youngest is two-and-a-half years old. The last couple of months, it's been a daily struggle to keep the hearth burning. Now, everything will be fine."
"I am also excited that I might get to meet CM Mamata Banerjee in Gangasagar," added Soma. CM Mamata Banerjee, who will be in Gangasagar on Monday, is likely to meet some of the fishermen.