Twenty-two years after her son was killed while fighting terrorists in Manipur, an 80-year-old mother in Lucknow says she has run out of patience. She has now made an appeal to the government: either fulfil the promises made to her family after her son’s death or take back the Shaurya Chakra awarded to him posthumously.Savitri Saxena, mother of former Assistant Commandant Vivek Saxena, says she is exhausted after years of making rounds of government offices over land and other benefits that the family was promised following his death. She has now sought appointments with President Droupadi Murmu and Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath, while offering to return her son’s Shaurya Chakra, medals and monetary honours.Vivek was killed in action in Manipur on January 8, 2003. He was subsequently awarded the Shaurya Chakra and the President’s Police Medal for his bravery.The family’s grievance came up at a grievance redressal event in Lucknow, where Savitri once again raised the issue of the land and memorial that she says were promised after her son’s death.According to an India Today report, Savitri’s elder son Ranjit Saxena says that the family has been waiting for the promised land allotment for more than two decades. The matter had also been taken up in 2016, when then Lucknow district magistrate Raj Shekhar directed officials to examine the family’s applications and initiate the process for the memorial and land allotment. But the issue, the family says, remained unresolved.
‘We grew up here, yet asked to prove UP roots’
One of the biggest hurdles, according to Ranjit, came when officials asked the family to establish that they were originally from Uttar Pradesh. “We grew up here, studied here, and my brother’s memento is at Air Force Station Memora. Yet we were asked to submit an affidavit stating where our mother lived before her marriage,” Ranjit told India Today TV.The family submitted the affidavit but the questions over their domicile did not end there. Officials subsequently questioned whether they were original residents of Uttar Pradesh and, according to Ranjit, indicated that the benefits could therefore not be extended to them.The family then produced an old receipt showing that the Uttar Pradesh government had earlier issued them a cheque of Rs 75,000 at the same address.That, Ranjit argued, raised a simple question: if the government had previously recognised and paid the family at the address, why was their domicile now being questioned?
Monetary honour came 21 years after his death
The delay, according to the family, was not limited to the land issue.Ranjit said the monetary award associated with Vivek’s Shaurya Chakra was finally received by the family only in 2024- more than two decades after his death in 2003.He alleged that the file remained stuck as it moved between departments, with officials repeatedly seeking verification before the matter could move forward.For Savitri, now 80, the prolonged wait has become physically and emotionally exhausting.“I don’t have the strength anymore,” is the sentiment she has conveyed while seeking an end to the years-long ordeal.Her latest appeal is therefore unusually stark. If the government cannot fulfil the promises made to the family of the fallen officer, she has asked that the Shaurya Chakra, medals and monetary honours awarded to her son be taken back.
