The sight of the blood-spattered shreds of human lives at sites of the 26/7 carnage was so disturbing that it has left deep lacerations on the minds of the survivors.
The bombs that exploded outside the Civil hospital in Asarva, one of the sites of the 26/7 carnage, blew 25 people to bits and destroyed a part of even those who were lucky to survive.
The sight of the blood-spattered shreds of human lives was so disturbing that it has left deep lacerations on the minds of the survivors. A case in point is Pradeepsinh Jadeja, the local MLA, who had hurried to the hospital after learning that the injured from the initial blasts were being admitted there. Jadeja said the evening’s petrifying images still haunt him.
“We reached the Civil hospital at 7:05 pm and were shocked by what we saw,” Jadeja said.
“We began helping the hospital staff carry patients on trolleys and stretchers. Between 7:30 pm and 7:40 pm, I was on the trauma centre porch. With me were a few friends and the Civil hospital superintendent MM Anchaliya.” Five minutes later, the bomb exploded outside the hospital. “After two or three minutes, I went outside the entrance of the trauma centre and was horrified by the scene of mayhem. It felt as though the earth had moved under our feet,” Jadeja said.
He said the blast was so powerful that a person’s body had been flung 30 metres; limbs of other victims was later found nearly 100 metres from the blast site. Some debris had been flung to the spot where Jadeja’s group was standing. Windowpanes on the second floor of the building and windshields of cars parked almost 100 metres away had been shattered, Jadeja said.
Some 10 minutes later, Jadeja and his companions noticed tiffin boxes, plastic bags and bedspreads lying near one of the hospital rooms. “I began to immediately fear that there may be more bombs hidden in the hospital,” Jadeja said.
However, he and others remained focused and began helping the victims. “Scores of people lay injured and were calling out to me,” Jadeja said. “People who had come to offer a helping hand were now lying dead or seriously injured. We managed to shift all of them to the trauma centre. Eleven of them, who were in a critical condition, were taken to the Rajasthan hospital.”
Jadeja believes the tough Gujarat Control of Organised Crime (GUJCOC) bill should be passed into an Act. “Gujarat is vulnerable to terror and the bill should be passed by the Centre in order to bring peace to our state,” Jadeja said. “Even today, the evening of July 26, 2008, haunts me. It has left a scar that will stay with me for life,” he said. “It’s a miracle that I stand here alive.”
He had gone to help
Pradeep Sharma, a BJP ward president, was one of the many injured in the blasts. The memory of the horror stings tears into his eyes. “It was a ghastly day for all of us. Never have I felt more terrified. One of the veins in my leg was cut and some portion of my calf had been severed by the blast,” Sharma said. He said he just lay outside the trauma centre for a while. “I knew this was a terrorist strike and had they opened fire, I would have surely died. I had lost my calm and began crawling inside the trauma centre.” Sharma’s friend, Mahesh Patel, saw him and dragged him in. “Other party workers spotted me too and helped Patel take me inside. I owe my life to them,” Sharma said. He, like several others, had gone to the hospital to help the blast victims.
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