Date:06/01/2008 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2008/01/06/stories/2008010654350400.htm

Andhra Pradesh

A family reels under authorities’ apathy

B. Madhu Gopal

VISAKHAPATNAM: A soldier’s family is yet to receive the benefits due to them nearly a decade after he was reported ‘missing’ from the EME Centre in Secunderabad. His wife and 15-year old daughter eke out a living as daily wage labourers.

Madanala Chalapathi Rao, a native of Peddamuraharipuram village of Vajrapukotturu mandal in Srikakulam district, was a soldier at the ASW workshop in Nasik. He was deputed to the EME centre at Secunderabad for training in January 1998. He went missing from the centre on February 21 in the same year. The Army officers sent a telegram to his wife on March 2.

His wife Revathi who was awaiting his return to the village on completion of the training, was shocked on hearing the news. She went to Maharashtra to make enquiries about her husband but the Army authorities failed to secure any evidence of the missing soldier.

The Bolaram police and Vajrapukotturu police closed the case of the missing soldier as ‘untraced’ after making enquiries. The Tahsildar of Vajrapukotturu madal had issued a ‘deemed death certificate’, under Section 108 of the Indian Evidence Act, 1872, in August 2007.

Ms. Revathi had approached Srikakulam MP K. Yerran Naidu and former Defence Minister George Fernandes seeking justice. The Army officers had apprised them that a thorough enquiry would be conducted into the missing case.

Her large family, including two daughters, a son and the missing soldier’s aged parents, has to survive on her daily wage earnings and that of her daughter. She is awaiting the intervention of the government for payment of benefits like family pension, group insurance and ex-gratia.