Varanasi, UTTAR PRADESH :
Varanasi :
When the chief minister Akhilesh Yadav felicitated eminent persons of different fields with Yash Bharati Award and announced a monthly pension ofRs. 50000 to the recipients in Lucknow on Monday, the kin of 115-year-old member of Subhash Chandra Bose’s Indian National Army (INA) Nizamuddin in Azamgarh district were upset over government’s apathy to recognize contribution of the centenarian war veteran.
“Not to speak of any award or pension, there is not even a ‘cheering smile’ from government side to this living legend of INA,” Nizamuddin’s son Akram Sheikh told to TOI.
“Is the service of my father, who had faced enemy’s bullet on his body to save Netaji’s life in the jungles of Burma (now Myanmar), worthless for the government machinery,” wondered Akram adding that no political leader except Prime Minister Narendra Modi appreciated his father publically. During his Lok Sabha election rally in Varanasi in May 2014 Modi had publicly greeted Nizamuddin and touched his feet.
“My father needs nothing, but only a warm call of ‘Jai Hind’ when the chief minister along with SP supremo Mulayan Singh Yadav will be at Sathiaon in Azamgarh, just about 6km away from our place, on Tuesday to attend a programme,” said Akram. He said that his father used to tell the wartime stories. Once when the INA troop was in the forests of Burma Nizamuddin spotted an enemy soldier targeting Bose. He shielded Bose and faced the bullet on his back. Laxmi Sehgal had removed three bullets from his body.
Nizamuddin, a resident of Dhakwa village in Azamgarh district, claims to be the close aide of Bose. He served as his body guard cum driver during INA tenure.
The only documentary proof to show his association with INA is the repatriation certificate issued in favour of Nizamuddin by one Swami (full name SV Swami), the chairman of Relief and Repatriation Council, Ex. Azad Hind Fauj and Allied Organisation, Rangoon. It is a certificate having information about him and a pledge for the nation with a seal of AH Fauj & Allied Organisation, Burma.
Nizamuddin is not ready to accept that Bose died in air crash in 1945, as he claimed that he had dropped his master on the banks of river Sitangpur near the Burma-Thailand border about three-four months after the said air crash. He strongly believed that Bose lived in Faizabad in the guise of Gumnami Baba, and he also claimed that the German make binocular found in the box of Gumnami Baba belonged to INA.
source: http://www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com / The Times of India / News Home> City> Varanasi / by Binay Singh / TNN / March 21st, 2016