HOWRAH: What was to be one of the cherished days in the life of 28-year-old Rima Singh - when her fiance was coming down to her home to meet her parents along with his mother to discuss their possible wedding date - turned out to be her last day as she came in the way of indiscriminate firing by a policeman at Park Circus on Friday and died a tragic death.
"I saw the news on TV and was feeling sorry for the young girl lying dead in a pool of blood. I dreaded watching the visuals and had turned off the TV, while preparing to welcome the guests. Little did I realise that it was my own daughter lying there," cried Smita Singh while holding a photograph of her daughter at their Howrah Dasnagar home.
Smita said she was working at home, when her neighbour came to their house and broke the news that the girl killed in the city firing was their daughter after TV news started flashing her identity more than two hours after the incident.
"The neighbour told me the news. My husband immediately called Rima. A policeman picked up the call and asked him to come to Beniapukur PS," she said.
Rima was the elder among the two kids of Smita and Arun Singh, who live at a rented accommodation on Fakir Mistry Bagan Lane in Howrah Dasnagar. With her father out of job for five years and a young brother looking to drop out of college to take up a job, Rima had taken up the responsibility of running the family. She was undergoing physiotherapy training and had also started serving patients.
Her kin said a little before the incident, Rima was on call with her fiance Prabir Roy and had told him that she was trying to come back at the earliest. "She had left home for work around 12 noon. She also took up the job primarily to ensure my son doesn't stop studying. How could God be so cruel? What was her fault?" asked Smita.
An arts student of Narasingha Dutta College, Rima had dropped out after second year. She was mostly engaged in household work before starting physiotherapy training and contributed to the family income following her father's job loss. "Our child died for no fault of hers. How could cops hand over a gun to someone who is not mentally stable? How are they going to compensate the parents for the loss?" rued another relative.
