20 years after blasts ripped apart lives, the trauma lives on | coimbatore news - times of india

Every time 40-year-
The Old R Rangaraj walked past the metal detector at the train station and the machine began to beep.
But the probe will still beep.
\"It\'s hard for me to explain that the metal pieces are stuck in my body,\" said rangrangrangaraj, referring to a bullet in a bomb that exploded in Coimbatore city on February 14, 1998.
Rangaraj, the family\'s breadwinner, was seriously injured in the explosion;
Twenty years later, this ordeal never seemedending.
Just two months ago, he had another surgery to remove a nail from his ankle.
His family was lucky to have survived.
Many people have lost their families and heirs.
Rangaraj was employed by a tailor at the Town Hall in 1998.
On this fatal day, he went home for lunch and returned to the workplace by bike around four o\'clock P. M.
It was on the streets of Mohammed Khani Ravuthar, near the Kempatti colony, where a bomb exploded and he was thrown off his bike.
\"When I opened my eyes, I saw a lot of bodies lying around me, many of which were dismembered.
I try to stand up.
But my left ankle was torn and the nerve on my right leg was cut off.
\"The Shrapnel pierced my body in many places,\" said Shrapnel araj . \".
He was admitted to the Coimbatore Medical School and Hospital. CMCH).
\"When another bomb exploded in the hospital, I was forced to lie on the floor, lying among hundreds of injured people,\" he recalls . \".
Rangaraj has been in and out of many hospitals for two months.
He underwent skin grafting on his left leg and ankle.
\"The explosion disabled me and shortened my youth when I was 20 years old.
\"I can\'t walk fast and my legs can\'t fold,\" he added . \".
A few months ago, when he felt pain in his right leg, he took an X-ray and the doctor told him that his nails were embedded.
He had another operation and took out his nails.
\"After the explosion, I lost my job in the tailor department because I couldn\'t operate the sewing machine with my legs.
Several pieces of metal and glass piercing my body were not removed.
Whenever I walk past the metal detector, it beeps.
A few months ago, a security guard at a Goldsmith unit was checking me with a metal detector when it started to beep.
They suspect I hid the gold.
\"It is very difficult for me to explain to them the reason for the beeps,\" Rangaraj said . \".
Rangaraj is married with two children.
\"My health has been worrying and I am not sure about my future.
I still haven\'t come out of shock.
I hope the state government can give me a job to help me live a good life . \"
Two bombs exploded on the day of the campatti colony.
One of them took 15 years of life. year-old boy.
Class 9 student S Ramakrishnan played in front of his house around four o\'clock P. M. when he heard a loud noise.
He thought it was an explosion in the temple and went quickly.
That was when the second bomb exploded.
The explosion destroyed our lives.
I ran to the scene and found that my seriously injured son twisted on the ground and asked for a sip of water.
The police tried to give him soda but I stopped them.
\"I put him on my lap, and that was where he was last breathing,\" said Vija Lakshmi, mother of Ramakrishnan.
The body was delivered to CMCH.
\"I ran to the hospital behind the ambulance, where I noticed hundreds of people injured in the explosion.
He is our only son. We lost him.
\"I have not celebrated Pongal or Diwali for the last 20 years,\" said Vijayalakshmi.
A few years ago, her husband died, living in a house in the Kempatti colony with her elderly mother.