Six-year-old Amaan Ahmed, the youngest among five siblings, loved watching “English cartoons”. Noting his son’s interest in the language, Imam Mukhtaz Ahmed, an alim (teacher) at the Momin Masjid near Golcha Cinema, arranged for English tuitions for Amaan and his brother Bilal (8).
On Tuesday evening, the two brothers were returning from tuition classes in Daryaganj when the building in Chandni Mahal collapsed. While Bilal sprinted forward to escape the falling rubble, Amaan’s reflex was to run back. That split second decision was the difference between life and death — Bilal escaped unhurt, but Amaan was buried under the rubble.
Standing outside the mortuary at Lok Nayak Hospital, Imam Ahmed was inconsolable as he described the night-long ordeal. “We visited all government hospitals after 9 pm. When we did not find him at Lok Nayak, we went to AIIMS, Safdarjung and Kalawati Saran hospitals,” he said.
Bilal, who saw his brother “disappear under the stones”, has not spoken since then. “He could not help us at all. We kept asking him what he saw. He just told us he ran ahead and Amaan did not follow him, and then he disappeared under the stones,” Imam Ahmed said.
When visits to hospitals proved futile, Imam Ahmed asked 4-5 students from the madrasa to help him search for his son in the debris.
After nearly four hours, one of the students, Mohammed Javed, managed to identify Amaan. It was 4.30 am when he was found.
Ironically, the group recognised Amaan from his tuition bag. “Whenever he came to the madrasa, he brought that bag. It was a new Mickey Mouse bag. I started crying the minute I pulled it out from under a huge pile of rocks,” Javed said.
Though Amaan was rushed to Lok Nayak Hospital, he was pronounced dead on arrival.
The family lived in a building behind plot number 833, the site where the building collapsed. Bilal and Amaan were the first in the family — they have two sisters and a brother — to get an “English schooling”. They studied at Phool Chand MCD School, apart from receiving the regular madrasa taleem.
