PM, Sonia, Mayawati’s silence agonises dead boy’s parents

KANPUR - Eight days after a severely injured boy bled to death because he could not be taken to hospital in time due to security restrictions during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit, his family deeply resents the silence of the prime minister, Congress chief Sonia Gandhi and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati on the July 3 tragedy.

While the central government was trying to pass on the responsibility for seven-year-old Aman Khan’s death to the state police, local officials in Kanpur sought to express their helplessness in the face of Special Protection Group (SPG) controlled VVIP security protocols.

“You can expect a word of sympathy only from those who can feel the pain of losing a child, but some people are heartless,” said the boy’s father Tahadud Hussain Khan.

“We are still looking forward to getting reply to our letter to Sonia ji,” he said.

Asked if the Prime Minister’s Office PMO has expressed any regret over the incident, he shot back in disgust: “You think it makes any difference to them?”

His wife Usha Sharma, a junior employee and trade union leader at the Ordnance Equipment Factory in Kanpur, instead trained her guns on the state government.

“What do you ask about the centre… even the state government was least bothered as no one from the government had cared to express their condolence,” she said.

She said the only official “who visited us was an ADM (additional district magistrate) who further made it clear that he was there strictly in a personal capacity”.

Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal, who flew down to Kanpur and visited the grieved family on Saturday, made it clear that he was there in his capacity as the local MP and not as an envoy of Sonia Gandhi, to whom Aman’s parents had shot off a letter July 6 about the incident and seeking no else should lose their life in this way way.

Jaiswal assured that he would name one of the five ambulances run by his private trust after Aman.

He also said he had written to the state chief minister for issuing necessary directives to provide alternative road routes to avoid hurdles on account of VVIP visits.

“I have also urged the chief minister to direct her police to assist people in distress and medical emergencies to reach hospital,” Jaiswal told media persons in Kanpur.