Where is my mom? Everyone else is here: 4-year-old asks family after returning home
Times of India | 22 January 2025
123 Kolkata: Four-year-old Ankita Mondal looked questioningly towards her aunt, Anjana Ganguly. "Everyone is here. All my friends are here. They are playing with me. I did not have to go to school. My grandmother and other relatives are here. Only my mother is not here. Where is she?" Ankita asked. Anjana, barely able to control her tears, asked neighbours — residents of East Rajapur close to the Santoshpur Canal — to take the child away to an adjoining building, telling her to play with friends.
Ankita displayed a range of emotions in the first few hours of Wednesday morning that will now change her life, even as she nurses a bruised face, arms, and hands.
It started when she was thrown off the bike she was on with her parents, barely 80 m from Jadavpur 8B bus stand. Her mother, Debashree Naskar Mondal (29), who was holding her firmly from behind, was thrown off the bike and died after coming under a bus. Ankita saw her mother lying on the road, bleeding profusely. She saw her father Tapas (37), a KMC contractual conservancy worker, lose consciousness due to the impact of the accident.
Ankita had a protected life so far, Anjana said. "It was my brother Tapas who insisted that he drop off Ankita to school each day. Debashree was always with them as they wanted to ensure that the child sat in between. Debashree used to bring her back from school and preferred to take the train as she thought it was safer and faster. On Tuesday, they left home at 6 am as usual.
Ankita reportedly spent the three hours immediately after the accident at the Jadavpur police station, said Anjana. Ankita's grandmother Sumitra Naskar said, "The police acted according to the rulebook. Did they not realise that the child witnessed it all and was alone and that she needed us?"
When Ankita finally returned home, she volunteered to share how the accident took place. "She said her father was waiting at the signal before a bus hit them. Time and again, she is asking for her mother as her life revolved around Debashree. She is even refusing water without seeing her mother," said Subodh Mondal (34), Ankita's uncle.
Two men who were first to rescue her from the accident spot — tea stall owner Shaktipada Maity and Jadavpur resident Pradip Dey — said the child barely spoke for the first few minutes when they moved her to a stool beside the local Canara Bank and waited for cops to arrive. "She eventually opened up, saying how she would miss school," recalled Maity.
Auto driver Gulshan Alam who picked her up from the road and prevented her from being run over, told police how Ankita had stayed mum the entire time he tried to console her and call the cops to the spot. "She barely spoke. Then talked about how one of her sisters was bitten by an ant," Alam said.
"I had just put my granddaughter on the school bus when I spotted Ankita. Her parents were being removed to a hospital at that point. We could not even answer her when she asked where her parents were being taken," said Dey.