Daughters gave shoulder to father’s bier, performed last rites
Mahasamund. An incident of shame to humanity has come to light from Mahasamund district of Chhattisgarh. Here in Saldbari village, two daughters under compulsion carried their father’s bier to Muktidham and also performed the last rites along with the only brother by lighting the funeral pyre. The surprising thing is that the whole village and relatives also kept watching the scene like spectators, but no one supported them. The compulsion is such that there is no food or water for them in the entire inhabited village. This is not the story of any Hindi film but reality. This is the story of a poor family who has been facing the brunt of village boycott for the last one year.
Both these married women who say ‘Ram Naam Satya Hai’ are real sisters and are going to Muktidham after coming to their maternal home and picking up their father’s bier. Both these sisters also performed the last rites of their father along with their brother. This whole matter pertains to Saldbari village of Bagbahra block in Mahasamund district. Last year in the month of October, during a religious event, 75-year-old Hiran Sahu, Patel of the village and his family had a dispute with the bullies in the village. Due to which he was punished for boycotting the village for not paying the fine immediately. After being ostracized from the village, his life became hell. The information about this sad incident was given by the son of the deceased, Tameshwar Sahu.
The pain of Bina Sahu, the wife of the excommunicated deceased, is very deep. This ostracized woman, who runs a family with poverty in about 3 acres of farming, says that when no one came after the death of her husband, daughters from other villages were called and the bier was taken to Muktidham.
The villagers of Saldbari village were not ready to speak in front of the media in this matter. But after much effort, the neighbors and relatives of the ostracized family say that the villagers have not boycotted.
On this whole matter, the police say that complete information has been taken from the victim’s family in the police station. Further action is being taken in this. Saldbari, a dependent village of Gram Panchayat Khaddarha, has a population of around 800. Apart from this victim family, another Sahu family and 8 tribal families have also been boycotted in Sahu and tribal-dominated village Saldbari. This poignant case is a living proof of oral Tughlagi diktat going on in the village.
