For 5 hours, 15 women safai karmacharis of the Central Railway washed, scrubbed and, thereby, did something they had never been trained for. Cleaning bloodstains and body parts from the platforms of CST.
CST cleaners washed away the remains of the 58 dead with grit and determination
For 5 hours, 15 women safai karmacharis of the Central Railway washed, scrubbed and, thereby, did something they had never been trained for. Cleaning bloodstains and body parts from the platforms of CST.
They did it quietly, without complaint and with so much resilience that when the sun rose on November 27, 2008, little remained of the massacre of 58 innocents.
"I worked in the railways for 34 years, and I have never cleaned so much blood," said Sushila Sharma (55), one of the cleaners.
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She added that it wasn't just blood, they had to clean up body parts, brain, and other unidentifiable, equally gruesome things.
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Cleaning Qasab's Sins: Sushila Sharma with deputy station manager Sanjay Pandey and some of her co-workers. |
She added, "I was on the 3 pm to 11 pm shift on 26/11. I had just finished my dinner at 9.30 and was going to the platform when I heard something like firecrackers going off.
We saw people being hit by bullets and ran to the general manager's cabin and hid there till 1.30 am when all was quiet."
Another cleaner, Bhamabai Kamble (54), said, "We washed the floors almost as if we wanted to rub the episode from our mind. I washed my hands many times.
Over the next few days, I couldn't eat properly, as I remembered the incident. Now, I hate talking about it."
The railway safais lost a colleague in the attack. "Arka Solanki got a bullet in her stomach. We were so busy with the cleaning that we couldn't go and meet her," said Sushila.
PRO A K Singh, CR, said, "It was their prompt action that helped us get things back to normal so quickly. No one complained and gave their 100 per cent."
Sushila also got a cash reward of Rs 5,000 last week.
