Guwahati, April 19

The Army’s Veterans Cell located at 51 Sub Area here helped Sangita Das, the wife of a missing jawan in Assam, get pension benefits more than 15 years after her husband had been declared “deserter” and later as “missing” by the Army.Sangita, wife of Pradip Das, a jawan of 5 Rashtriya Rifles Battalion, had first moved the Armed Forces Tribunal (AFT) in 2004, informing that her husband had been missing since July 2001 when he was supposed to report back to his unit in J-K after returning from leave. The Army unit where Das was posted later declared him “deserter” much to the agony of Sangita as it deprived her of pension benefits, thereby plunging her into abject poverty.Poverty compelled Sangita to work as domestic help and at a noodles factory in Guwahati at Rs3,000 a month. She with help of some relatives moved Guwahati bench of the AFT in 2004 seeking justice and pension. Though the AFT ruled in her favour in 2013, the Army still did not provide any pension benefit to her. She then brought her case before Veterans Cell, HQs 51 Sub-Area, here during an ex-servicemen rally held on December 9, 2015.“Veterans Cell swung into action and the 5 Rashtriya Rifles republished orders amending Pradip’s status from ‘deserter’ to ‘missing’. She finally got pension payment order on March 21, 2016. Sangita has been given a job by the HQs 51 Sub Area and her daughter Dinisha has been admitted to Army school in Narangi with free education,” said a defence spokesman. — TNS