Two brothers rush for Morbi rescue operation, later learn their sons were among dead

MORBI: When the news of the bridge collapse spread like wild fire across Morbi, two siblings — Ganpat Rathod and his elder brother Manu — didn’t think twice before rushing to the site to help in the rescue operations that night of October 30.
But while the duo went around helping people reach the shore and fishing out as many victims as they could, they were entirely ignorant of destiny’s cruel plans.
While lining up the bodies, Ganpat suddenly noticed his son Vijay’s motorcycle parked nearby. “We both recovered 12 bodies and while arranging them for identification by bereaved families, I suddenly saw my son’s motorcycle near the suspension bridge gate. I lost consciousness,” Ganpat told TOI, tears rolling down his cheeks. Seeing his brother staring at his son’s motorcycle, the elder sibling understood that Vijay couldn’t have gone there alone and had taken along his cousin, Jagdish, Manu’s son, too. “This is because the cousins not only studied and played together, but were practically inseparable. They lived and died together,” Ganpat, who works as a mason, said.
“Vijay was recently selected for a home guard job and was supposed to join duty from November 1. He had got his uniform two days before his death. My son Jagdish too had found himself a job at a garment store,” Manu, a painter, said.
Jagdish Rathod and Vijay Rathod, both 20-year-olds, were born and brought up in Kulinagar locality that comprises around 150 households of mostly Dalits and Muslims.