‘My house was always cheerful with 7 kids’: Kerala man who lost family in boat tragedy

‘Heart-wrenching’ doesn't quite convey the intensity of the tragedy that has struck the Kunnummal family in Parappanangadi of Kerala’s Malappuram district. Eleven of the 22 persons who lost their lives in the boat accident on the night of Sunday, May 7, belong to this family of fisherfolk.  

When TNM reached the house late on Monday evening, religious leaders and neighbours had gathered to join the surviving family members in prayers. Along the length of a foundation laid for a new house nearby were several unoccupied benches tied together. Earlier that day, it was at the same spot that Siraj and his brother Saithalavi last saw the lifeless bodies of their wives and children, before they were interred at a nearby mosque. Saithalavi’s wife Seenath and four daughters Shafla Sherin, Hasna, Shamna, and Saflah, and Siraj’s wife Raseena and his three daughters Zahara, Rushdha, and eight-month-old Naira died in the accident. Jabir, whom the Kunnummal house considered family according to their neighbours, also lost his wife Jalsiya and son Jareer. 

Saithalavi told TNM that merely 20 minutes before the fateful boat ride, he had spoken to everyone in his family, and had dissuaded them from going on the boat as it was late in the evening. “I never thought they would do this to me,” he said. “Sometime after 7 pm, I heard that a boat capsized in the Purapuzha river, and rushed to the spot to help with the rescue. I had no idea that my family was among those who drowned,” he said.

Local residents gathered around the boat that was pulled out after it overturned on May 7 near Parappanangadi

Saithalavi and the other fishermen in the neighbourhood immediately launched search and rescue efforts. Extending his hands, he said, “Like this, in my very own hands, I pulled out the lifeless body of my brother’s child from the boat.” It's been more than 24 hours since the accident when we speak, and Saithalavi’s voice sounds drained of emotion, seemingly resigned to his fate. “They are gone, fate has had its way,” he said.  

Till two days ago, twelve persons lived in the small, worn-down house in which tarpaulin serves as the roof in some places. Now, only Saithalavi, Siraj, and their elderly mother Mariam remain. “Our house was always loud and cheerful. We had seven daughters, and their laughter and conversations would ring in the house till midnight on most days. It is all gone now,” Saithalavi said. 

Their neighbour Asifa, who had gone to the beach with Saithalavi’s family on the tragic Sunday, agreed. “The mood was always festive at their house. We used to live together as a family, my children always hanging out with theirs,” she said. When Saithalavi took this reporter to Asifa’s house on Monday evening, she was watching videos of the deceased children on her phone.

Asifa is unable to shake off the sight of her neighbours waving to her from the boat, calling her to join them as she stayed on the beach scared by the overcrowding aboard. “All of us had initially decided not to take the boat as there were too many people. But the boatman offered to charge us only for the adults, saying all children could ride for free. That was when Seenath, Raseena, and Jalsiya boarded with the children. I was still scared, so I stayed behind,” she said.

Saithalavi too blames the boatman for his family’s decision. “If every single person had been charged, it would have come to Rs 1,100. My family cannot spend that kind of money, so they wouldn’t have boarded. But given such a good offer — eleven persons for the charge of three — they chose to go,” he said.

The vacant benches on the foundation for the new house that Saithalavi had built four months ago are disturbing — their emptiness too large to miss, and their silence too loud to ignore. 

A few kilometres from Parappanangadi, near Olappeedika in Tanur is the Kaatil Peediyakkal family that lost three persons, Siddique, and his children Fathima Minha and Faisaan. His third daughter survived the accident and is admitted to the Government Medical College Hospital in Kozhikode. Neighbours told TNM that she will be discharged on Tuesday. The family’s eldest son Junaid had not accompanied the others on the Sunday evening trip.

Mohammed Shafi, a neighbour who has known Siddique since they were young, remembered him as a soft-spoken man who always greeted everyone with a pleasant smile. Siddique was a daily wage worker in a glass shop nearby. Shafi said that the house the family currently lives in was built recently with aid from the government. “The Rs 10 lakh declared as compensation is far from enough. The accident was caused by the failure of several government departments to do their duty. The government should accept responsibility and give a job to Siddique’s wife,” he said. Kerala Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan has ordered a judicial inquiry into the accident.