Palwal horror: Victims’ kin to get ~3-lakh relief each

Bijendra Ahlawat

Tribune News Service

Palwal, January 3

Relatives of the six victims, who were bludgeoned to death by a 45-year-old ‘mentally unstable’ official of the Agriculture Department here yesterday, agreed to take the custody of the bodies this noon after the administration agreed to pay a compensation of Rs3 lakh each.

The affected families had demanded Rs 21 lakh as compensation and refused to take the bodies after the post-mortem yesterday. However, relatives of a woman victim took the body yesterday only.

DC Mani Ram Sharma said the relatives agreed to take the custody of the bodies after they were informed that there was no provision of a financial help of Rs 21 lakh and what the state government and the district administration could pay under the given framework was Rs3 lakh.

A relative of a victim said that they were faced with numerous problems in delaying the cremation as it had already been delayed by more than 24 hours and there was no use to carry on the confrontation with the state government when it had failed to show its humanitarian face. A majority of the victims had been sole earning members of their families and it was a major loss to them, he added.

The accused, Naresh Kumar, who was admitted to Safdarjung Hospital in New Delhi after he had suffered brain hemorrhage during a scuffle with policemen at the time of his arrest, underwent a head surgery and his condition was stated to be stable.

Karan Dalal, local MLA, said the government could spend crores of rupees on ‘chintan shiver’ in HP, but it had no money to pay to poor persons who had died due to no fault of theirs. Demanding a compensation of Rs 1 crore, he described the help of Rs 3 lakh as minuscule.