Hakim hands over Rs 2L ex-gratia to bereaved kin of workers in Malda

Malda: State Urban Development minister Firhad Hakim met the bereaved families of the workers who lost their lives in the under-construction Railway bridge collapse incident in Mizoram and handed over the Rs 2 lakh ex-gratia amount in Malda on Sunday.

Hakim also hit out at the Governor for distributing cheques from the Railways. He labelled it unbecoming of a Governor to act as a representative of the Railways.

Hakim said that he had come to Malda on the instructions of Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee to find out about how these families would economically sustain themselves.

“The role of the Governor is to advise the government and not distribute cheques of the Railways. The Enforcement Directorate (ED), Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) and the Governor of the state are acting like representatives of the Central government. The BJP government is actually degrading the status of all the three. ED and CBI are full of great officers but these institutions are now being used as instruments of the Central government. The Governor is going everywhere, though his actual role is to advise only. The Governor is trying to do the things which BJP wants to do but cannot in Bengal. As there is no organisation of BJP in the state, they send the Governor everywhere,” Hakim alleged.

The Urban Development minister reached Malda by road on Saturday night and left the district after meeting the distressed family members of the labourers who lost their lives in the tragedy, both at Chauduar in Ratua II and Sattari in English Bazar.

Incidentally, 23 workers from Malda died when the under-construction Railway bridge collapsed in the mountainous area of Sairang in Mizoram on Wednesday. The Mizoram government identified the bodies of 18 workers among them. Later, four more bodies were recovered but one still remains missing.

Incidentally, on August 25, Governor CV Ananda Bose had arrived in Malda and handed over cheques to the families of the deceased. He handed over cheques of Rs 9.5 lakh sent by the Ministry of Railways along with a cash grant of Rs 50,000 to each family of the deceased workers in Malda in the presence of Railway officials. Following this, he departed for Kolkata on the same night.