NEARLY three weeks after a PhD scholar from IIT-Delhi died when an excavation pit from which she was collecting soil samples in Lothal gave way, the BJP MLA from the region, Bhupendrasinh Chudasama, performed a ‘shanti puja’ at the site in the Harappan-era port town.
Chudasama, a veteran Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader and former Education Minister of Gujarat, was joined by party legislator from Dholka constituency, Kiritsinh Dabhi, along with locals from the surrounding villages, including 10 village heads from Dholka taluka, as they prayed for peace to Surabhi Verma’s soul for almost two hours.
“The daughter that came for an assignment could not return and met with the unfortunate incident. Being a religious and spiritual person, I wanted the shanti yagna for peace of the departed soul. The purna ahuti in the hawan was given by everyone present there, including the drivers, helpers, and villagers,” Chudasama told The Indian Express.
Chudasama said he had organised a similar puja at an accident site in the state around three decades ago. “In 1997, 11 people from Amreli died when a bus carrying passengers drowned in a rivulet in Lolia village…I organised a similar shanti yagna at the site,” Chudasama said.
Speaking to The Indian Express, Verma’s father Ram Khelawan, who is based in Sitapur in Uttar Pradesh, said, “The family appreciates the move and the intention behind the puja for my daughter.”
Verma, 26, who was pursuing her PhD at IIT Delhi’s Centre for Atmospheric Sciences, died when a trench she was working in near the Lothal archaeological remains collapsed on her. Her Associate Professor Yama Dixit was pulled out of the trench by first responders.
On Monday, the trench, being marine clay, had grown 3-metre wide – double the size recorded right after the incident on November 27.
Sahdevsinh Zala, Sarpanch of Nani Boru village, who participated in the puja, said that local residents are always available to anyone who comes at the site for any research. “The locals are well aware about the soil conditions and the type. We are always available for people but in this case, we were not aware that the researchers were working on the site. Then how could we have helped them?” said Zala who was among the first responders in the incident.
MLA Dabhi said the puja would send out a positive message to the locals. “The people in the area surrounding the site, and Lothal at large, are not very educated and are superstitious. With this untimely death, there should not be any hindrance in the development of the world’s best maritime museum coming up in Lothal. So, this puja was performed to send positive energy and peace to the daughter who was pulled to the site by her destiny,” Dabhi told The Indian Express.
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