Jalandhar, March 1
Years after their husbands laid down their lives safeguarding the country’s front from the enemy while serving the Dogra Regiment, normalcy has not returned in the lives of these “veer naris”.

They were here during the silver jubilee function of the 18th Battalion of the Dogra Regiment at the Vajra Central Hall here today. The serving regiment officers felicitated them and presented to each one of them a cheque for Rs 15,000.

But emotional wounds were hard to heal, the war widows said, as they rued that the government had done little to help them overcome the difficulties in life.

Bilaspur resident Nisha Kumari had been married for just 12 days when her husband Naresh Kumar died fighting the enemy.

Since then she has been fighting for her rights. “I was promised a job about two and a half years ago at the time of his cremation. Later, I re-married my husband’s younger brother, but he is not employed. I want the government to give him a job. We have approached authorities a number of times, but to no avail,” she regrets.

Hailing from Palampur, Ms Krishna, widow of sepoy Parshotam Ram, narrated her tale of woes, “I have been raising my three children with my Rs 6000 pension coming from the Army. I had earlier been given an amount of Rs 50,000 but I had to spend most of it in the marriage of my elder daughter four months back. I had been promised a job by the HP government about 10 years back at the time of my husband’s death. But it is still an empty promise.”

Mandi-based Kamlesh, widow of Naik Pushp Raj, said that her husband had died about a year ago leaving behind a six-year-old daughter and a two-year-old son. “To become self-reliant I have done NTT course. Now I want the HP government to help me get a suitable government job. I have approached officials many a time, but no one is sympathetic,” she cried inconsolably.

“Sepoy Swaran Singh was too young to get married when he died after being hit by enemy’s bullet,” said his brother, Ujagar Singh from Jammu. “We have received Rs 50,000 twice for his valour and a Kirti Chakra, too, but we want some kind of memorial to be built by the government near our house. After all, he has done so much for the nation,” he said.

On the occasion, Lieutenant-General Bhoopinder Singh, Colonel of Dogra Regiment and Dogra Scouts, laid a wreath to pay homage to the gallant soldiers. He even released a first-day cover of “Ashoka Chakra Paltan” prepared by the Army Postal Department and a souvenir to mark the 25th anniversary.

He explained that the 18 Dogra had obtained the distinction of being the only battalion of the Dogra Regiment to have the highest peace time award, Ashoka Chakra, awarded to Major Sandeep Shankla posthumously on January 26, 1992.

Phagwara, March 1
A priest’s prophecy and a professional mistake by nurses kicked up a ruckus at a private hospital here on Tuesday, besides creating terror in the hearts of female patients who had delivered male babies on Monday night and Tuesday morning.

Hospital authorities asked mothers admitted there to keep a vigil over their new-born baby boys after one Shanti, who had delivered a baby on Tuesday night, was handed over a baby girl while she kept asserting that she had given birth to a baby boy and insisted on leaving the hospital with a male infant. And she did, eventually with her own male baby.

High drama ensued when Shanti claimed that before she was admitted to the hospital, she had been told by a priest that she would deliver a male child.

Efforts were made to pacify Shanti by the hospital’s nursing staff. But she refused to accept that the priest’s prophecy had gone wrong. This led the hospital staff to seek help from senior health authorities.

So obsessed was the woman about a male child that she reportedly threatened those present in the gynaecology ward that she would lodge a complaint with the police and walk out of the hospital with a baby boy. This had the young mothers, who had delivered male babies in the night and the morning, break into cold sweat.

Then things took an embarrassing turn for the hospital. A nurse who had heard the woman threatening to lodge a complaint with the police and the doctor’s orders for a DNA test to determine the parents of the new-born child, admitted that the hand tag of Shanti’s baby and its file papers were mistakenly exchanged with those of another baby, who, too, was born the same time on Tuesday.

The hospital authorities then handed over the male child to Shanti who heaved a sigh of relief and left the hospital.

Earlier, a doctor of the hospital, on the request of anonymity, had told The Tribune that she was “very clear” that Shanti had given birth to a girl child. “The time of the birth, hand and footprints of the baby were duly taken and recorded,” she had added.