lucknow: one of the first ones to reach the site where the plane carrying madhavrao scindia and others crashed, louise khursheed had no time to mourn over the loss of a 'dear family friend'. the wife of the former upcc president took charge of the situation from the word go. from supervising local villagers to arranging for petromax, ambulance and tractor to beseeching an utterly confused lot of policemen to cordon off the area, and, in between, desperately trying to contact ambika soni and 10 janpath to break the ghastly news, it had been one of the most hectic seven hours of her life. probably the worst. when contacted by the times of india, louise was initially not too willing to speak as she thought it could be misunderstood as a move to capitalise on a national tragedy. when she relented, one could feel her trauma, anguish and anger at the glaring lapses on the part of the mainpuri administration. here is her first-hand account of the fateful events of last sunday: i know after telling you all this i fear losing much as i am speaking against the dm and ssp of my constituency. but for once i don't give a damn. i was visiting my constituency in bhogaon when i decided to take a round of bevar also. there was no one in the congress office.i was told that they had all left for the site where a plane had crashed and there was a likelihood of madhavrao scindia being one of the occupants. i immediately rushed to the spot along with dr ejaz ilmi. we reached bhairauli by 4.15 and there we passed the cars of the dm and ssp mainpuri. my first reaction was that of immense relief. if these people were going back things couldn't be all that bad. it was raining heavily and i slipped, fell and waddled through knee-deep water at times as we walked the last two kilometres to arrive at a place where there was a ring of people surrounding something. a worker saw me approach and shouted stay there, stop. 'apke dekhne ke layak nahin hai' he warned. the crowd, many among them knew me, parted on seeing me and then i almost fell on the first body. that is how close they were to the wreckage with the policemen doing absolutely nothing about cordoning off the area. i could hear somebody ask in the background — is scindia there?... there is a girl in a green kurta too, and fought back the horrible sensations. do you recognise anyone? a policeman was asking. i took in the five bodies lying uncovered on the muddy floor. how do i describe? the first had long hair and wore a kara. must be sikh i thought failing to figure out who... another body in blue jeans and blue checked shirt, too mutilated to be recognised. the next one gave me a sinking feeling. no mistaking madhav... the face had taken the impact but the rudraksha beads, his tricolour angochha and the customary blue shoes he always wore told all too plainly. still in a daze, i moved on to another heap. and that is when i saw ranjan jha. his face perfectly preserved, only somewhat swollen. oh my god, there were journalists also on board, i realised. the next one was a woman, again, no harm to the face. i heard ejaz say that was anju sharma from hindustan times. and then one of the policemen approached me to ask if he could go through the pockets of the jeans-clad body to establish identification. sure enough, there was his wallet with the identity card. god, this is sanjay sinha from indian express, i said, and suddenly things fell in place. if there were three journalists the body with the long hair and kara was bound to be that of rupinder singh, scindia's press advisor, we concluded. it was 5.15 when a helicopter approached us. any survivors, asked a lone man from bareilly air base? none, but could he help us carry the bodies to agra or delhi, i enquired. he advised me to contact his superior officer who promised to help. just as things appeared to be moving, the policemen flatly announced, "no shifting of bodies till panchnama." why don't you do panchnama, i asked in desperation. "because we are waiting for the forms," he replied. the helicopter left. it was getting dark. i asked the villagers to get a petromax and some chadars to wrap the bodies. you have wireless why don't you contact someone higher-up, i pleaded with the policemen. no response. they began the panchnama around 7 and then arrived salman, mukul wasnik, chandrbhan singh, subhash yadav, tilottama and shailja. they all helped wrap the bodies. but the cloth was too short. we can't have the relatives see bodies with broken limbs. i told them so salman and the rest took off their angochhas and tied the bodies. there was one ambulance and a trolley to carry the bodies. scindia was put in the ambulance while we placed the other bodies tightly on top of one another. shailja, tilotamma and i sat on the tractor while the men walked back to the site. the cm had already reached bevar. from then on, everything went off smoothly. i can say with my hand on the heart or any holy book you name, had the administration moved in swiftly we would have moved the body by 4.30 pm.
