Gurgaon: Sakatar Singh’s family in Punjab waited for his customary call — the one that always came around 9.30pm. On Thursday, however, the phone hadn’t rung till as late as 11pm. And then, the silence broke in the worst possible way.A colleague called from Faridabad to say a crane had crashed at the construction site where Satkar was working. The 29-year-old civil engineer was crushed to death under its weight. By daybreak, his parents were in a hired cab on the highway, racing towards a city they barely knew, to identify the son who had become their only steady lifeline.The youngest of three brothers from Gurdaspur, Sakatar was the first in the family to escape daily-wage work through education. After studying civil engineering in Batala, he built a career across states — stints in Odisha and Varanasi — before joining the Faridabad project three months ago. He earned about Rs 50,000 a month, which kept the household running while his father and two elder brothers continued as labourers.“We knew something was wrong when his phone remained unanswered till 10.30pm. Then, around 11pm, his colleague told us about the accident,” father Gurmeet Singh (65) told TOI.Reaching Faridabad early on Friday, the loss felt total. “When we saw his body, we knew everything was over. We toiled for years to educate him. He was our strength. We were planning his marriage when he left us at the prime of youth,” Singh said at Chhainda police station, trying to follow the formalities through tears.Sakatar’s mother Dalbir Kaur (60) remembered him as the family’s most responsible member. “He was a kind-hearted soul and was concerned about everyone at home,” she said.A co-worker, Jeet Singh, said the minutes before the collapse were nothing unusual — a packet of chips, soft drinks and a break at work as the weather turned windy. “We were sitting outside in the open, eating, because work had stopped,” he added.When the rain suddenly intensified, Sakatar moved into an iron container with three labourers. And Jeet ran to park his bike under shelter. “Before I could return, the crane had crushed the container. I froze for seconds. I had a narrow escape — but I had lost a friend,” he said.Another family shattered by the collapse was that of Manish (30), a daily wager from Alwar district in Rajasthan. The eldest of seven siblings, he was raising three children — aged 5, 3 and a nine-month-old daughter. The household depended largely on his earnings.Manish had worked with the company for four years and had been posted to the Faridabad site only a month ago, his uncle Ghanshyam Singh said. The first call home spoke of injuries, not death.“We were told there had been an accident at the site and he had suffered injuries. We dropped everything and reached Faridabad around 9pm. Then, we learnt he had been shifted to hospital,” Singh said.At the hospital, hope ended. “We were told he had died,” he said.Relatives said the family has little land and savings. “There are seven siblings — six brothers and a sister. Manish was the eldest and the main breadwinner,” said another relative, Mithanlal. With Manish’s parents already undergoing medical treatment, the family said they were not yet informed about his death. “Seeing his parents and his wife, we haven’t told them he has died. We’ve only said he is in hospital. They would be devastated if they come to know he’s no more.”The deaths occurred on Thursday afternoon, between 1.30pm and 2pm, at an NHAI project near Panhera Khurd in Faridabad — part of an 11km elevated road planned to connect Faridabad with Greater Noida and, eventually, the Noida International Airport in Jewar.Police said a section of a crane collapsed onto an iron container used by workers for resting and cooking. Of the 22 labourers at the site, 4-5 were inside the container when the crane came crashing down. Rescuers cut through the crushed structure with mechanical cutters to pull workers out.DCP (Ballabhgarh) Prateek Agarwal said a thunderstorm that hit Delhi-NCR contributed to the accident. An NHAI official said, “Prima facie, there were no safety lapses. Due to strong winds, the crane got damaged and fell on the iron container,” calling it “a natural calamity rather than a safety lapse”.The third victim was identified as Jaydev Kumar (21) from West Bengal. The lone injured, Manik (25), also from West Bengal, is admitted to Sarvodaya Hospital and is stated to be stable. His family has requested that he be shifted to AIIMS, Delhi.
