Ayodhya MP & MLA vow to deliver Padma medal to Shareef Chacha’s house

AYODHYA: A day after TOI reported how Padma awardee and Faizabad’s ‘last rites’ Samaritan, Shareef Chacha, was terminally ill, wallowing in penury and may not live to get a glimpse of his Padma medal, local MLA Ved Gupta and Ayodhya MP Lallu Singh, promised to write to the Centre to get his medal delivered at his doorstep, considering his sinking health.
A debt-ridden Shareef had borrowed Rs 2,500 last year to buy train tickets for Delhi, only to be told the Padma awards ceremony at Rashtrapati Bhawan had been cancelled due to the pandemic.
READ: Faizabad’s last rite Samaritan on death bed
Since Saturday morning, social workers, a team of government doctors, citizens and politicians made a beeline for his two-room decrepit house. While legislator Gupta vowed to mobilise funds and disclosed he was talking to the state government to dole out a monthly allowance and free ration for Shareef, former UP minister Tej Narain Pandey donated money to the family and promised to launch a crowdfunding drive.
Talking to TOI, BJP MP from Faizabad, Lallu Singh, who was the proposer of Shareef’s Padma award, said, “I am talking to senior Central government officials to arrange delivery of the medal and citation to his home. I will arrange funds and ensure free medical aid.”
In the afternoon, a three-member medical team led by additional district magistrate, Ayodhya, Vaibhav Sharma, visited Shareef’s residence. Talking to TOI, Sharma, said “Senior doctors conducted a thorough medical check-up and we have promised all medical help to the family.”
Shareef, who has performed the last rites of over 25,000 unclaimed bodies in over 25 years, lives in a rented tenement at Mohalla Khirki Ali Beg in Faizabad City. His two sons, Sagheer and Ashraf, earn a pittance and are barely able to make two ends meet.
Talking to TOI, former minister in the Samajwadi Party government, Tej Narain Pandey, said, “It’s shocking that a man who devoted his life to provide honour to the dead should spend his last days in abject poverty. The state government should immediately provide relief.”