KARUR: A day after a deadly stampede at TVK chief Vijay’s political rally tore apart families, Emoor, a small village about eight kilometres from Karur town, is in deep mourning. Five of the forty victims belonged to this village, including two from one family. K Sakthivel, who lost his wife and 14-year-old daughter, sat grieving. “I had already lost my elder daughter years ago; now my younger daughter and wife too are gone,” he said, breaking down. He said both were ardent Vijay fans, determined to see ‘Vijay anna’ despite his pleas to return home fearing the swelling crowd. “They said they wanted to see him at any cost. When I saw the initial news that ten people had died, I tried calling them frantically, but they were unreachable. Both of them lost their lives at different spots of the stampede,” he said.P Selvaraj lost his wife while his son, who had accompanied her, narrowly escaped. “Now there is no one to guide my two boys who had already dropped out of studies,” he said. Emoor has at least two more families grieving the loss of their loved ones in Saturday’s tragedy.Elsewhere in Karur, grief has taken equally cruel turns. A couple from Upidamangalam lost their daughter and her fiance, who were set to marry in November. They had gone to the rally along with her brother, who chose to remain outside, wary of the crowd. “They asked my son to stay out, fearing the rush, and went inside. They had planned to watch the meeting from a friend’s terrace. I made her the first graduate in my family, and now I’ve lost her,” said S Malathi. A mother and her two young daughters were also among the victims. On Sunday, the site of the tragedy still looked like a battleground, with slippers, flags, water bottles, pieces of clothing and garbage. strewn everywhere. Branches of trees were snapped, while nearby buildings bore signs of damage. “Many tried to climb trees, some even fell into ditches. The generator area too got occupied, forcing it to be shut down and plunging the floodlights set up,” said S Baskar, who runs a shop near the venue. “The least Vijay could have done was visit those struggling in hospital,” he said.