KARACHI - The man who joined Pakistan Army on the very first day of independence in 1947 remains deprived of his pension for the last eight months, as the authority concerned has declared him dead in the government documents, TheNation has learnt here.
Soldier Fakharuddin, 82, who started serving Pakistan Army from the first day of independence, said that he had been receiving his pension since he got retirement in 1959 but it had been blocked in April 2012 as the department concerned declared him dead.
“As usual, I visited the department concerned for my pension in May, wherein I came to know that I am no more alive,” he said. He said he was shocked to learn that how a living person could be registered as dead.
Fakharuddin said that he had not received his pension since April and was suffering due to the negligence of the department concern as he had no other source of income.
Despite visiting the relevant department and making several humble requests, the officials were not ready to make correction in the documents to continue his pension.
The retired soldier lives alone in a one-room house in Railway Colony, Karachi, but receives pension from Hyderabad. Fakharuddin joined British Army in his early age, and soon after the independence he migrated to Pakistan and joined Pakistan Army and was posted in Dera Ismail Khan.
He informed that although he had taken his retirement in 1959, he took part in Indo-Pak war in 1965 and 1971, when he was called back by the Pakistan Army.
Fakharuddin also witnessed the entire process of the independence.
He said on the Independence Day he was deputed at Dehli Assembly as a security guard of Lord Mountbatten, who was the last Viceroy of India, and the first Governor-General of the independent Union of India (1947–48).
He recounted that soon after the independence, bloody riots erupted in Dehli where numbers of Muslims were killed and were forced to leave.
He said that the Muslims who were serving the British Army were deprived of the weapons, property and were forced to leave India.
“I found my father slaughtered and my mother and two brothers missing as the Indian rioters had attacked the innocent Muslims,” he said while wiping his tearful eyes.
Fakharuddin remained a bachelor throughout his life and has no family member.