New Delhi: In a small Delhi home, a three-year-old boy keeps glancing at the main door. It has been three days since his father, 34-year-old Amar Kataria, last knocked, and he rushed into his arms. Now, his hope fades a little each day as he watches the silent rooms and his grief-struck mother, unaware that his father was among the 13 lives lost on Monday evening.

“He keeps looking at the door. Every sound outside, he turns around. He thinks someone is coming. You can see it in his eyes. He is realising something is wrong but he does not know what,” the victim’s relative Swadesh Sethi told PTI

Among the victims of the tragedy was Amar Kataria, a pharmaceutical businessman from Chandni Chowk‘s Bhagirath Palace. He had stepped out after finishing work, unaware that within minutes his family’s life would be torn apart.

Amar and his wife Kriti had been married for four years and were happy in their little world. Until the clock struck 6:52 in the evening, when a blast shattered the dreams of his and 12 other families.

For his family, the hours that followed unfolded in disbelief and panic. They searched for information, clung to hope and prayed. By the time the confirmation arrived, their home had already fallen silent.

He described the scene when Amar’s three-year-old son stood beside his father’s body, confused and frightened by what he was seeing.

Sethi’s voice trembled as he recalled it. “He kept tugging my hand and asking, ‘Papa zameen pe kyun so raha hai?’ (Why is dad sleeping on the ground?) He kept asking again and again. I could not hold myself. I was crying and brawling. How do we answer a child who still thinks his father is only asleep?” he said.

Amar’s wife frozen in pain

Speaking about Amar’s wife Kriti, Sethi said she has barely moved since the news arrived. “She just sits at one place. She has not spoken much. She is in complete shock,” he said, adding, “She is three months pregnant. She has not cried loudly. She is not reacting. She is just there, staring.”

At this point, Sethi broke down again. He said Amar and Kriti had big and beautiful plans for their future.

“They were married for four years. They were planning for another baby. Planning to build their own little world. Everything was going smoothly. And now everything is gone,” he said. “Her life has just stopped, like it is frozen in time.”

Kataria’s family said that there are no words for the gloom that has settled over their home. Sethi added that the family is shattered beyond anything they could have imagined. He broke into tears repeatedly as he spoke about the moments that followed the news.

Sethi also said that no representative from the Delhi government has visited them since the blast. “Our constituency’s MP came on the day of the cremation and the next day, the BJP president came. Not one person from the Delhi government has come. We are mourning alone,” he said.

Amar’s father Jagdish Kataria spoke quietly about the final moments before the tragedy. “Amar was our only son. He got married four years ago and has a three-year-old son. He had called us to say he was on his way home,” he said.

When the family tried calling him again, a stranger answered. “A woman picked up and told us she had found his phone near the Red Fort, where a blast had happened,” Jagdish said and added, “We did not know what to do. We just left immediately.”

Body found due to distint tattoos

The family rushed to the spot and then to LNJP Hospital where they waited through the night among other grieving families. “We waited till five in the morning and then we got his body,” he said.

His body was found charred beyond recognition and the tattoos on Amar’s arms helped them recognise him when almost nothing else remained.

One read ‘Mom my first love’. Another said ‘Dad my strength’. A third carried the name ‘Kriti’.

Amar, who ran a medicine shop in Chandni Chowk, leaves behind an elderly father who depended on him, a young pregnant wife who cannot yet process the loss and a little boy who still waits at the door. Their family was still being built. Now it has been broken in a moment that changed everything.