Click to play videoNew Delhi: The sixth anniversary of September 11 attacks is about a month away. And the families of 9/11 victims in United States are being told they may not be able to walk down into ground zero this year.
New York city officials say the sight is now a construction zone. Standing among the scores of visitors at the site of the world trade center, Deputy New York Fire Chief Jim Riches says he will always be drawn to Ground Zero.
His son Jimmy was one of the more than 300 city firefighters who died when the twin towers fell on 9/11.
“We found my son's body on March 25, 2002. And we went down there, took his body out of the pit and walked him up a ramp,” he said.
On the anniversaries, since that day, authorities have allowed the victims' families to walk down that ramp to remember their loved ones. However this year may be different.
Construction is underway to build the skyscrapers that will replace the trade center. Mayor Michael Bloomberg may block the families from entering ground zero saying it's no longer safe.
“It doesn't work. And you know we just have to get used to the fact that there's a lot of construction going on there,” Mayor Michael Bloomberg said.
But Riches says, he is not buying this logic. He points out that the construction is supposed to stop on 9/11 this year.
"All we want to do is walk down the pit, we pay our respects where our loved ones died and spent their last hours, and go down there and honor them,” he said.
Officials want the families to gather at a park which a few steps away from the site. Not good enough says riches. He notes more than a thousand families still haven't recovered the remains of their loved ones—remains that are quite possibly still here.
“Did we realize that the day will come that you won't be able to walk down there as you have for these past three years? We've, we've well you have to be reasonable, yes. There's going to be buildings there and we know that, to me it will always be a cemetery,” says Jim Riches.
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