Shaikh’s wife Momina, 30, who hails from Uttar Pradesh and had come to the city eight months ago, cannot stop crying at her one-room house on Road No 6, Shivaji Nagar, Chembur. Holding her 18-month-old son Afzal, she says, “Mera toh saara ghar hi taabah hogaya hai. (My family has been destroyed) . She has two other sons — Arbaz, 6, studies at an Urdu medium school and Faizal, 3, who thinks father is out driving his taxi.

Shaikh drove a taxi owned by Abdul Rahim Abubakar of Dongri. He left home at 7 pm every evening, drove the cab all night, and returned home at 10 am the next morning. His family would wait for him to come home so they could have a meal together. They subsisted on a monthly budget of Rs 5,000, of which Rs 1,500 was paid as rent and electricity tariff to their landlord, Zakir Ali, and the rest was spent on food, medicines and other basics.

On November 26, Shaikh left home as usual. Later, Momina’s parents in Uttar Pradesh called a general store near her house to break the news of Shaikh’s demise. Momina said, “The police had seized his driving license and the contact number printed on it was that of our native place.”

“So many police officers came, took my statements, even officials from the Collector’s office came and did a panchanama of the house. But even now no financial help has been offered by anyone. With no source of income, I will have to take my children back to my parents’ house in UP. But even they are not financially stable and I don’t want to be a burden to them,” she said.

Expressing her gratitude towards her neighbours, she added, “They have taken care of everything — right from claiming the body from the hospital to performing the last rites.”