Geeta Devi, wife of martyr Ravi Paul, along with her children at Sarwah village in Samba district. Tribune Photo: Inderjeet Singh

Dinesh Manhotra

Tribune News Service

Sarwah (Samba), June 10

The patience of Geeta Devi, 35, wife of Uri martyr Havildar Ravi Pal, is running out as for the last six months she has been moving from one office to another to get ex gratia and other compensation to which a martyr’s family is entitled to. She has been facing official apathy and the apathetic attitude of local politicians. Geeta says, “I have two young children. How can I regularly visit government offices for ex gratia and compensation?” Her elder son Vansh is in Class VII and the younger one Sudhanash is in Class V. “The state government has not sanctioned even a single penny for our family,” says a sobbing Geeta. She said except “photo sessions”, politicians had failed to do anything. Geeta had submitted a job application before the tehsildar concerned in December 2016. When her husband was martyred in September last year, she was promised a job by the authorities. “It appears that my application is gathering dust as there is no progress in 

my case,” she said.

Of the 18 soldiers who were killed in the Uri terror attack on September 18, 2016, Havildar Ravi Pal of Sarwah village in Samba district and Subedar Karnail Singh of Shibu Chack village in Bishnah belonged to the Jammu region. All other state governments had instantly announced compensation to the next of kin of the bravehearts.On January 18 this year, the state government had announced in the Assembly that the ex gratia cases of the next of kin of the Uri attack victims of 2016 had not been received by the Home Department so far.The BJP had announced an ex gratia of Rs 5 lakh each to the two martyrs on its own but the party ministers in the coalition have so far failed to get the compensation sanctioned from the government. Meanwhile, no official was ready to come on record over the inordinate delay in releasing the ex gratia to the Uri martyrs. While the Ramgarh tehsildar has recently taken over, other senior officials preferred to maintain silence.Despite repeated attempts, local BJP MLA Chander Prakash Ganga, who is also a Cabinet minister in the coalition, was not available for comment. His personal staff claimed that the “minister is busy in a meeting”. 

Relief released

• UP Rs 20 lakh
• Jharkhand Rs 11 lakh
• Orrisa Rs 10 lakhplus pension
• Maharashtra Rs 15 lakh
• Bihar Rs 15 lakh
• J&K Nothing so far