Forty-four years after he laid down his life in defence of the nation, Param Vir Chakra awardee Grenadier Abdul Hameed's grandson was offered a labourer's job by the Uttar Pradesh government.
The move that came late Tuesday night followed a two day-long dharna by the deceased's soldier's wife and grandson before the UP Vidhan Sabha.
Hameed was awarded Param Vir Chakra posthumously for his gallantry in the 1965 Indo-Pakistan war, when he single-handedly blew off five Pakistani tanks.
Hameed's octogenarian widow had repeatedly urged successive governments to get one of her grandsons a job in the state government. But her plea fell on deaf ears and other than lip service none of the governments cared to listen to her plea for building a memorial in the martyr's name in their home village.
According to a spokesman of the chief minister's office, 'no sooner than the chief minister came to know about that Abdul Hamid's aged widow Rasoolan Bibi and grandson Shamim were staging a 'dharna' outside the state assembly in Lucknow, to press their long pending demand for a government job to one of their family members, she promptly issued instructions to appoint Shamim in the UP Power Corporation."
He said, "Since the grandson's qualification was Intermediate (Class XII), there were only two options -- either to offer a peon's job which was stagnant, or a labourer's position that provides scope to rise up to the junior engineer's level."
Keeping that in view, the UP Power Corporation issued an appointment letter as a labourer with monthly emoluments touching Rs 7800. In keeping with Shamim's request for a posting in Hamid's home district, he was given a posting in Ghazipur unit of the Power Corporation.
After Shamim accepted the appointment letter around 10.30 pm, local authorities arranged an official vehicle for him and his grandmother to be transported back to their village in Ghazipur later in the night.
