Govt forgets promises made to martyr's widow

LUCKNOW: A person taking promises made by government for true can only be called naive. But one just hoped things would be different in case of a martyr - a Param Veer Chakra - and his family. Alas, it was not to be.
It has been a month now since the UP government promised to give Rs 5 lakh to the widow of Abdul Hameed, who had laid down his life for the country during the Indo-Pak war in 1965.That financial help, however, is nowhere in sight. Nor is there any government official to tell Rasoolan Bibi when can she expect the grant promised by chief minister Mayawati.
On Monday, 95-year-old Rasoolan Bibi was in the state capital running from one office to the other, enquiring about the status of her grant but she could not manage to meet even the district magistrate. A dejected Rasoolan Bibi has gone back to her native village in Ghazipur, vowing never to come back.
Last month, when President Pratibha Patil visited the state capital, she gave consent to meet the war widow. Caught on the wrong foot, the state government, which so far had not been giving heed to her complaints, hurriedly announced sops for her. The President, while expressing satisfaction, assured Rasoolan Bibi that she would also try to get her some financial assistance from the Centre. All this was supposed to happen in a week.
On Monday, when TOI met Rasoolan Bibi she said that during her previous visit on September 22, the principal secretary to the chief minister, Vijay Shankar Pandey, had categorically said that the chief minister had decided to grant her Rs five lakh as financial help. And besides that her cataract operation would be performed in Varanasi on government expenses and also one of her grandsons would be given a government job.
She said that she kept waiting for the money assured and medical treatment promised.
"When my grandson met the DM, Ghazipur, he feigned ignorance about any promises made to me by the state government. Hearing this I came to Lucknow on Sunday and today my grandson made several calls to the district magistrate's office but the standard reply was - DM saheb was busy...come tomorrow."
A dejected Rasoolan Bibi, left for her village in Ghazipur district on Monday evening. With tears in her eyes before leaving she said, "I will never come here again. Ab jo karega woh Allah, kyon ki bande ki baat per se hamara vishwas utth gaya hai." (Now, i have left everything to Allah...i no longer trust human beings)
Despite all this, it seems she has no grudges against the CM. "Adhikari log mukhya mantri ke kuch bataule nahi hohiyen, nahin to hamar kaam ho jayet (officers concerned may not have properly briefed the CM, else my work would have been done)."