Grandparents in shock over infant's death in Mumbra collapse

Sitting teary-eyed on a sofa at a relative's home in Mumbra, Iftekar Faiz and his wife Mumtaz are still in a state of shock. It has, after all, been less than 48 hours since their home, Smruti apartments in Mumbra, crashed to the ground before their eyes.

Iftekar Faiz and his wife Mumtaz who lost their two-month-old granddaughter Mehek (inset) after a portion of Smruti apartments collapsed at Mumbra on Friday. Pic/ Sameer Markande

But it's not the loss of a home and valuables that has numbed the elderly couple into silence. Their grief is compounded many times by the fact that they lost their newborn grandchild in the tragedy. Faiz's granddaughter Mehek died after a portion of the building fell on her. And the grandparents cannot stop blaming themselves for her death.The Faiz couple's second daughter Lubna had come to her parent's home in Smruti building three months ago for the delivery of her first child.u00a0

Everything was hunky dory till the day the accident happened. Speaking to SUNDAY MiD DAY between sobs, Lubna's mother Mumtaz said, "Lubna was so happy after Mehek's birth. She was the apple of our eye and was a very playful child." The building crash not only killed the infant but her mother too is in a critical condition at a hospital in Mulund. The morning on which the building collapsed, Lubna and her daughter were taken to Kalsekar hospital in Mumbra initially where the baby was declared dead on arrival. Lubna was shifted to another hospital in Mulund.

On Saturday, Lubna's left leg was amputated and doctors have yet not informed the family how much more time would their daughter take to recover. On June 22 when SMD met the grieving couple, they said, "Today was the day my granddaughter would complete two months and God has taken her away from us. We cannot stop crying thinking about everything that she would do which would make us smile."
u00a0