Kalahandi: He has been berated by ill-informed people on social media for shooting the visuals of Dana Majhi carrying the body of his wife on shoulders instead of helping him out. But not many know that it was OTV’s Bhawanipatna reporter Ajit Singh, who had informed the concerned authorities over phone about the incident on Wednesday and it was his efforts that finally ensured that an ambulance reached the place to carry the body to his village.
But Singh had to move heaven and earth before the ambulance reached the spot. Ultimately, it was private individuals who came to his aid even as officials, including the collector, twiddled their thumbs and kept passing the buck to one another.
After getting a call from his source early on Wednesday morning, the OTV reporter set off on his bike for Shagada village where he found Dana Majhi walking towards his village carrying his wife’s body, his sobbing daughter walking alongside him. The OTV reporter consoled Dana and his daughter, who had been walking for two hours at a stretch by then.
When Singh called up the Kalahandi Collector D Brunda, she said she would tell the CDMO to arrange for for a vehicle to ferry the body. But when he contacted the CDMO, the latter said, “My phone was unreachable. May be that's the reason I did not get any call.” However, the official listened to everything and said he would direct the ADMO to do the needful.
Following this, the OTV reporter contacted Lanjigarh MLA Balabhadra Majhi and informed him about the incident. The legislator did send his representative Gobind Padhani, but the wait for an ambulance was still not over.
Finally, the OTV reporter contacted an office bearer of the Balaji Mandira Surakshya Samiti, who sent an ambulance while Pramod Kumar Khamari, a local businessman, gave the money to refill fuel in the ambulance.
A distressed Dana Majhi finally got some relief when the ambulance arrived to carry his wife’s body to his native village Melhghar, which is 50 km far away from Shagada.
Ironically, the man who discharged his duty as concerned human being, apart from playing the role of a reporter, is being accused of insensitivity while not many fingers are being pointed at the entire district administration from the collector downwards, which displayed insensitivity of the worst possible kind.