Saris keep Surti traders wrapped in politics...

Surat: Wrapped up in six yards of poll strategies — selling specialised sarees with images of PM Modi and Pulwama attack — Surti textile traders are all out to appease the voters, while the corpses of unclaimed bodies languish in the post mortem room of the New Civil Hopsital (NCH) waiting for 2.5 mtrs of charity from the markets for their kafans. The hospital, which needs around 5,000 to 6,000 pieces of the white cloth to cover these bodies, is yet to find a donor from the markets this year.
Majority of it is supplied by the textile markets located on Ring Road. A few social activists have also sought help on social media platforms urging donors to fulfil the hospital’s requirement of kafan cloth to carry out the last rites of the bodies.

In a Facebook post, social activisit Nilesh Modi taunted the traders saying that the textile traders have got busy appeasing Modi that that have forgotten to honour the dead with at least a kafan cloth. “The requirement of kafan cloth at NCH is not so big and that a single trader in the market can take care of it. But, these traders are busying appeasing their political akas” said Modi.

A staff nurse at NCH’s trauma centre on condition of anonymity said, “Once the patient is declared dead at trauma centre, the body has to be transported to post mortem room located some 150 metres away. We are using old blankets to cover the body in the absence of kafan cloth.”

Another nurse said, “For the past one week we have been using old blankets to cover the bodies and now we are running out of blanket stock in the hospital.”

Secretary of Federation of Surat Textile Traders Association (FOSTTA), Champalal Bothra, however, defended the traders and said: “Traders won’t lag behind in donating kafan cloth to the hospitals when required. Maybe they are now busy due to the election season, and there may be a shortage of kafan cloth, too. But we will circulate the message in the markets about NCH’s requirement of kafan cloth.”