They stopped hoping to find him alive. Then they found a hand
When Amrit Diyali saw a human hand washed downstream by floodwaters, his heart sank.
The hand was beginning to decompose, caked in mud and dust. But what struck Amrit most was how much it resembled his younger brother Raj Kumar’s.
The devastating flood that swept through the Bhotekoshi river on August 26 left Raj Kumar Diyali, 33, his 30-year-old wife Shriti, and their four-year-old son Siraj, missing. The family, from ward 2 of Buddhshanti Rural Municipality in Jhapa, had been living in Syaphrubesi, Rasuwa, where Raj Kumar had run a jewellery business for about 15 years.
There has been no word from any of them since.
In the days after the flood, relatives travelled as far as Chitwan and Nawalpur searching for their bodies. They turned over piles of mud and stones, clinging to a grim hope: if they could not find them alive, they at least wanted to find their bodies.
On Sunday, five days after the flood, Raj Kumar’s nephew Avinash found a human hand that had been carried downstream to Nawalpur.
When he examined it, he thought it looked like his uncle’s.
“Avinash sent me a photo on WhatsApp saying, ‘Dad, I found a hand that looks exactly like uncle’s,’” Amrit said in a heavy voice. “Looking at it, it really does look like my brother’s. The fingers, the shape of the nails, everything.”
The discovery brought a painful mixture of hope and dread.
On Tuesday, Amrit sent a sample from the hand to the National Forensic Science Laboratory in Kathmandu for DNA testing. The sample is 182nd in line for testing.
As the days pass, one question is consuming him: When will the results come?
“We have stopped hoping for anything else,” Amrit said. “Even if that hand turns out to be my brother’s, at least we would know for sure.”
The hope that Raj Kumar might still be alive has largely faded. Now Amrit wants only to find some part of him, however small, so the family can finally know what happened.
Raj Kumar had run a jewellery business in ward 5 of Syaphrubesi for around 15 years. He was the only jeweller in the area, and business had been good.
