Coromandel Express passenger Suvendu Bej, 20, has not been able to speak in the past three days and his father blames the Union government for the traumatised state of his son.

"My son has not spoken since I found him at the Balasore hospital. The doctors only know what is wrong with him. I don't understand anything. What will happen if he never recovers?" a hapless Badal Bej, Suvendu's 50-year-old father, told The Telegraph.

"If the central government had not stopped the funds for MGNREGA, neither Suvendu would have had to go out of the state for work nor would he have been in this accident," he added.

The only time Suvendu could utter something was when he cried out desperately for his mother.

The twenty-year-old has lost all that was on him — some cash, a brand new smartphone, all his documents, and some jewellery — in the accident and his family has already loaned more than Rs 16,000 to shift him from Balasore to Calcutta for treatment.

Suvendu is a migrant labour from Gopiballavpur in West Midnapore and the lone earning member in his family. He was travelling to Chennai on the Coromandel Express that met with an accident on Friday evening. Suvendu was accompanied by his cousin Pankaj, who is currently being treated at the Balasore hospital.

Before the pandemic, Suvendu used to dig ponds and engage under the 100-day employment scheme and earn around Rs 8,000-10,000. However, since the tussle between the Union and state administrations began over the disbursement of cash under the NREGA scheme people like him lost their guaranteed jobs.

Left without options, Suvendu, like many others in this state, had left the state as it was on him that the survival of the family depended.

"He works as a mechanic in Chennai. The money he makes helps us run our family," Badal said.

After news about the accident flashed across TV channels on Friday evening, Badal, his brother and a nephew left Gopiballavpur for Balasore on two motorbikes. He made his way to the Balasore hospital and started looking for his son. When they couldn’t locate Suvendu amidst the crowd at Balasore station, he took an auto to the site of the accident. His son wasn’t there either.

“I then went to a nearby morgue where all the corpses were kept. I will never be able to tell you the pain of looking for your son in a heap of bodies. I was happy to not find him there,” Badal said. He then went back to the Balasore hospital and found Pankaj there first. Later he could locate his son as well.

However, that was not the end of his ordeal. Badal could not find an ambulance that would ferry his son to Gopiballavpur. He came across a vehicle with a Midnapore number plate and approached the owner for help. This person asked for Rs 12,000 to ferry the patient and his family.

Whatever money he had borrowed from his family and friends, Badal paid the owner of the car with that. Once they reached Gopiballavpur, Badal took his son to Gopiballavpur hospital, from where he was referred to the Midnapore hospital. From there he was sent to the Nil Ratan Sircar Medical College and Hospital in Calcutta.

“I had to pay Rs 4,500 to the ambulance that brought us to Calcutta,” Badal said. “Nothing of this would have happened if my son was still working as an NREGA employee.”

The family does know what awaits them as Suvendu gets treated at the Calcutta hospital. Every month, Badal’s son used to send them Rs 12,000 to help them run the family, which included money for Suvendu’s younger sister to carry on with her studies.

“She has cleared Class XII but we do not know if she will be able to continue her studies. The family’s future looks uncertain as we do not know if Suvendu will be able to return to work again. We look forward to the government to stand by us in our moment of crisis,” Badal said.

A Trinamul panchayat member in Gopiballavpur said that they would approach the administration and try to do everything possible to help the family.

Sources at NRS said that Suvendu has an intracranial injury that has left him disoriented. According to these doctors, he is critical and is admitted to the hospital’s ICU.

As Suvendu gets treated in Calcutta, the core concern for the Bej family remains how to overcome the disaster that struck them on Friday.