BHUBANESWAR:
A man, who helped us get our motherland back from tyrant Englishmen and spent
horrible moments in jails with a smile, is now running from pillar to post to
get a small piece of land under the freedom fighter quota from the State
Government.
Born
in 1921 at Kesharpur village of Kendrapada district, freedom fighter Sukadev
Sahu is in the last stage of his life. Inspired by the patriotic speeches, he
had joined the freedom movement in 1941 and was arrested during the movement.
He had spent many days in the jail and the rest is history.
Das,
a landless freedom fighter, had requested the President of India in 2010 to
provide a piece of land. The President’s office had communicated the letter to
the Union Home Ministry and directed to take appropriate action at their end.
The Ministry on February 11, 2010, wrote to the Chief Secretary of Odisha to
process the request.
On
May 26, 2010, the Revenue and Disaster Management department had written a
letter to the District Collector, Khordha to take appropriate action as per
rule. Even the department had sent a copy of the letter to Sahu as directed by
the Union Home Ministry.
Four
years have already passed, but the Khordha Collector is yet to give any
response in the matter. “The Collector is sitting over the file during these
years without taking any action on the letter,” said Sahu’s son Satyanarayan.
The
freedom fighter’s son said his father has already given five letters to the
Collector to look into the matter, but they don’t get any response. “My father
has all the valid documents including citations and identity cards given by the
Centre and the State. The President, the Union Home Ministry and the State
Government had directed the Collector to process my father’s request, but no
action has been taken into the matter,” said Satyanarayan, adding, “It seems
the administration is indirectly neglecting us.”
He
said the State Government has allotted several plots, flats and land in favour
of corrupt politicians, bureaucrats, influential persons and their relatives,
but it didn’t have time to process the letter of a freedom fighter.
India
got freedom and the nation marched ahead with the times, but the country seldom
thinks about the sacrifices of so many people participated in the movement. The
country in general and the State in particular remember the names of the heroes
only on the Independence Day by felicitating with citations, he lamented.
The story was published in The Pioneer English daily on August 14, 2014
The story was published in The Pioneer English daily on August 14, 2014
No comments:
Post a Comment