PATNA: Chief minister Nitish Kumar’s good governance probably doesn’t mean prompt help to the widow of the cop who died confronting Maoists.
Even almost two months after Mithilesh Prasad, the SHO of Gaya’s Tekari police station who fell to the bullets of Maoists during an encounter at Majhiyawa village on February 13, his widow Meena Prasad has not been paid ex gratia by the government. The job, promised on the compassionate ground, has also remained elusive to her.
None other than the then state DGP, Anand Shankar, announced a compensation of Rs 10 lakh and a government job to the next of kin of the martyred SHO. This was when he and other police and administrative officers were in Daudnagar, Prasad’s native village in Aurangabad district, for his cremation on February 14. The DGP also handed Prasad’s widow a sum of Rs 29,000, raised through donations from Prasad’s colleagues.
Shankar has since retired. And over 50 days on, all Meena Prasad has received is another Rs 21,000 and a citation posthumously praising her husband’s bravery. This was at a function in Aurangabad to celebrate Bihar Diwas on March 22. “We had Bihar Diwas funds, and we utilised a part of it for the purpose,” Aurangabad SP Nishant K Tiwary told TOI on
Tuesday.
ADG (HQ) P K Thakur said the ex gratia amount has been sanctioned and the payment would be made soon. “The delay was caused due to the fact that the financial year 2009-10 was coming to a close and people were busy,” he said.
Meena Prasad, meanwhile, is all alone, looking after her three children — Nilesh Ranjan who just wrote CBSE’s Class X exam, Sunny Prakash who studies in Class IX and daughter Nishu who is in Class VIII. “No senior police officer has cared to visit us after my husband’s death,” she told this paper.
Her two sisters keep sending their husbands to do the legwork and get the files expedited. “I come from Patna, meet officials and am told things are in the process,” said Sanjay Kumar, a railway employee who is married to Meena’s younger sister.
Gaya DM Sanjay Kumar was kind enough to tell Meena to contact him whenever in need. But the DM’s staff won’t allow them access to him “anytime and every time”. Like, they went to the DM’s house twice on Tuesday but returned empty-handed because he was “inside, and not sitting in his residential office”.
The promised job and the money, thus, remain a dream for the widow— even in sushasan!
