Nepal peers save Victoria Cross hero’s house

KATHMANDU: His name is inscribed on memorials outside the Westminster Abbey and the Buckingham Palace.
However, Tul Bahadur Pun, the 86-year-old warrior from Nepal who had been awarded the Victoria Cross, the highest award for gallantry bestowed by the British government, faced the erasure of his name from Pokhara, the sunny city in Nepal���s Kaski district famed for its settlements of Gurkha soldiers who had served with the British Army.
As Pun battles heart trouble, asthma and diabetes in London thousands of miles away from Nepal, his house in Pokhara, mortgaged to raise money for his treatment, was about to be auctioned by the private finance company that had loaned him NRS 2.3 million (about $29,890).
It made his family frantic. Pun has no earning members in Nepal since both his sons and his daughter are in the UK with him as his caregivers. The family is seeking settlement rights in the UK and their application is pending since September. Only Pun���s two daughters-in-law and small grandchildren live in the house in Pokhara and they were in no state to repay the debt.
However, when it seemed the house would be sold, Pun���s guardian angel smiled on him. ���We read about his plight in the local newspapers and decided we have to do something,��� said Mahendra Rai, general secretary of the Gurkha Army Ex-Servicemen���s Association (GAESO).
The GAESO has been a formidable opponent of the British defence ministry for nearly a decade, fighting a series of court battles to win equal pay and pension for Nepalis serving in the British Army, and then, settlement rights in the UK.
Last night, the GAESO central committee decided to raise the money internally and pay off Pun���s creditor. ���His family had repaid NRS 1 million,��� Rai told TNN. ���So we chipped in with NRS 400000 last night, when a payment had to be made. We will hand over the rest of the money soon.���
This is not the first time that fate has looked after the brave but simple man from Nepal. In 1944 during World War II, a battalion of the 6th Gurkha Rifles of the then Indian Army began an attack on a railway bridge in Burma when enemy fire wiped out all but three.
While two of the survivors were injured, the lone rifleman Pun kept up the charge, killing three and providing covering fire for the reinstatement. The feat fetched him the VC, which was followed by 10 more decorations, including the Burma Star medal.
But despite the loyal service, when Pun sought to go to the UK three years ago for medical treatment, he was rejected by the British Embassy in Kathmandu on the ground that he did not have ���strong enough ties with the UK���.
However, fortune came to his rescue once more. The British media championed his cause and Pun���s court battle against the decision received widespread public support when British actress Joanna Lumley campaigned for him to be allowed to be settled in the UK. Lumley says Pun had saved her father, who had also served with the British Gurkhas.
Finally, in 2007, the then British minister of state for asylum and immigration Liam Byrne announced Pun���s case was ���exceptional��� and the government had decided to let him in.