Father Refuses To Believe Son Died In Odisha Train Crash, Finds Him Alive In Morgue

In a heartwarming story of an unwavering belief, a father who refused to believe his son had died in the Balasore train crash, traveled over 230 kilometers from Kolkata to Balasore and found him alive in a makeshift morgue in Odisha.

A deadly train crash involving two express trains and a goods train claimed at least 278 lives and left over 1,100 others wounded.

Helaram Malik, a shopkeeper based in West Bengal's Howrah received the news of the Odisha train crash hours after he dropped his son Biswajit off at Shalimar station to board the Coromandel Express. He then called his 24-year-old son to check if he was okay.

Without wasting time, Helaram along with his brother-in-law Dipak Das, contacted Palash Pandit, a local ambulance driver, and decided to travel 230 km to the site of the crash at Odisha's Balasore and embarked on a frantic search for his son.

After reaching Balasore on Friday, Helaram could not find his son, who was presumed to have died in the Balasore train accident.

Determined to find his son, Helaram went from one hospital to another, seeing the bodies of those who lost their lives in the tragedy.

"We never gave up. We went around asking people, hoping to get leads on where to go next. One person told us that if we could not find anyone in the hospital, we should look at the Bahanaga high school, where the bodies were kept. We could not accept it, but went anyway," Dipak told Times of India.

Finally, after hours of search, Helaram reached the makeshift morgue in Odisha, where Biswajit was found lying unconsciously and injured badly.

He immediately took him to the nearest hospital for medical aid. Later, Helaram got his son discharged and headed back to Kolkata where he underwent surgery at SSKM Hospital's trauma care unit.

According to reports, Biswajit suffered multiple fractures to his right hand but his condition is stable.