Martyr's wife saddens Rahul, assures her help

Ranchi: The plight of Balamdin, wife of Albert Ekka, a soldier who died fighting in the 1971 India-Pakistan war, moved Congress leader Rahul Gandhi after he came to know that the five-acre plot of land allotted to his family by the government turned out to be disputed. “We apprised him of our plight, told him about the disputed land, now in a court, and urged him to help find a job for me. We are very happy to meet Rahul Gandhi,” said Bhisent, who was nine-months-old when his father Lance Naik Albert died while fighting Pak troops at Ganga Sagar. Albert was posthumously awarded the Param Vir Chakra. “He assured us to help in whatever way possible,” Bhisent, who met Gandhi along with his mother in Ranchi, said. Over two decades ago, the government had allotted the land to the family in Gumla district as a mark of respect to the soldier’s sacrifice. The land was, however, allotted without proper inquiry and later it was found out that it belonged to someone else. Gandhi, who placed a wreath at the Bhagwan Birsa Munda Samadhisthal in Ranchi this morning, left for Bokaro to finish with his two-day engagement in Jharkhand.