Kolkata: State Cabinet ministers Firhad Hakim and Aroop Biswas on Tuesday handed over cheques of Rs 10 lakh each to the families of two victims in Kolkata who died in the Pahalgam terror attack.
In the terrorist attack in the Baisaran Valley of Pahalgam, 26 people lost their lives, including Bitan Adhikari from Patuli, Samir Guha from Behala, and Manishranjan Mishra
from Purulia. Following the incident, Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee had declared that the families of Manish and Samir would receive Rs 10 lakh each from the government.
For Bitan Adhikari from Patuli, Rs 5 lakh was to be given to his parents and Rs 5 lakh to his wife. Accordingly, on Wednesday, Hakim and Biswas visited Samir’s residence in Behala and then Bitan’s home in Patuli, delivering the financial aid to the two families on behalf of the state government.
Bitan worked in Florida, USA, while his wife and three-and-a-half-year-old son lived in Kolkata. He had gone to Kashmir for a vacation with them but was killed in the terrorist attack. Although Bitan’s wife resides in Patuli, his elderly parents live in another house in Kolkata. Family sources revealed that Bitan was the sole breadwinner. Additionally, the Chief Minister had announced a monthly pension of Rs 10,000 for Bitan’s parents.
Like Bitan, Samir and Manish had also travelled to Kashmir with their families. On the day of the terrorist attack in Pahalgam, they were in the Baisaran Valley and were killed by the terrorists.