The other Zubeen: Why deaths of Assam’s migrant workers have not stirred election debate
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Zubeen Nath was supposed to come home in February for Bihu, to celebrate his wife’s birthday.
Instead, the phone rang at his neighbour’s home in Assam’s Chirang district on the afternoon of February 13.
When his mother answered, she was told that the 26-year-old had died in an accident at the tile construction factory in Bengaluru that employed him. “Someone told her that our son fell into a machine and died immediately,” his father Ananta Nath told Scroll.
Incredulous, his father called his son’s number and an Assamese contractor picked up. “He told me that my son was lying under a machine, applying grease on it, but nobody had noticed him,” Ananta said. “Someone turned on the machine and he got trapped. His body was split into two.”
The next day, Nath’s body was brought home with the help of a contractor.
Zubeen Nath had been working at the company for about five years. He is survived by his parents, his 20-year-old wife and a one-year-old son.
Nath’s father said the owner of the Bangalore company gave the family Rs 50,000 to perform his last rites. “But we have not got any help from the state government,” he added. “The local MLA and government officials visited and only gave us assurances.”
Unlike the...