Among Punjab’s Covid orphans, some too young to know what happened to parents
Children of a small farmer in his 50s who died in May, the twins lost their mother 22 days after their father’s death.
“They talk about their parents all the time. They call their father dedda and always tell me how much their dedda and mumma (mother) used to love them and how they would get them all the toys they wanted,” said the uncle.
“Even when they are playing they suddenly go quiet and start asking about their parents. They cry a lot during the night and repeatedly press me to call their parents insisting they want to sleep with them,” said the uncle, fighting back tears. He added that while earlier the twins were told that their parents had gone to America and will return with lot of toys for them, “now we have started telling them that God has taken them along”.
The maternal aunt of the kids said: “We had seen such scenes in movies, but now all this is happening to people like us. We don’t know how will we handle this situation, butone thing is for sure that we will raise them as our own children.”
It’s a similar story of heartrending loss in Jalandhar, where siblings – a three-year-old girl and a five-year-old boy – lost their parents recently to Covid-19.
While 28 is the figure till date, Punjab government has sent details of 23 (orphaned during March 31, 2020 to May 31, 2021) such children to Centre. Every attempt is being made to get these children benefits under existing social security schemes, said government sources.
Out of these 28 children, nine are between 3 to 10 years of age, while 14 children are between 11 to 15 years of age, remaining five children are 16 to 18 years of age. There are 16 male and 12 female children in the list.
While most in the list of 28 have lost both parents to Covid-19, there are a handful who had lost one parent earlier, while the second one was snatched away by the virus during the outbreak.
Another 15-year-old boy, a Class 10 student, from Jagraon has lost both parents and now lives with his aunt.
A Class 5 student from Fazilka had lost her father earlier, and her mother died due to Covid in May. The 11-year-old is now being looked after by her paternal aunt.
In a similar cases, a 10-year-old from Mohali and an 8-year-old from Bathinda are also being looked after by their grandmothers after losing both their parents.
In all these cases, the children are either with their maternal or paternal grandparents, while in some cases, they are being looked after by their aunts or uncles. There is no case where there has been a need to send them to government shelter homes.
