By Our Staff Reporter
Dehradun, 20 Apr: A programme to felicitate families of martyrs and freedom fighters was organised under the ‘Azadi Ka Amrit Mahotsav’ celebrations at Nehru Auditorium, Kaulagarh, here, today. Cabinet Minister Ganesh Joshi was the Chief Guest and BJP state vice-president Anil Goyal was the special guest.
The families of 40 martyrs and freedom fighter Ram Pratap Bahuguna were felicitated by presenting them saplings and shawls.
The families that were given honour today were those of Subedar Pradeep Thapa, Ajit Pradhan, Pankaj Gurung, Surendra Singh Thapa, Shyamlal, Bahadur Thapa, Dil Bahadur Thapa, Ramesh Bahadur Thapa, Naik Subab Singh, Jaiprakash, Anusuya Prasad Bhatt, Govind Singh, Narpal Singh, Dilip Kumar, Ashok Kumar Thapa, Mithun Kumar Gurung, Veerambir Lama, Ramesh Kumar Gurung, Harishchandra Sawan, Rajdeep Thapa, Narayan Prasad, Raju Gurung, Madhu Kumar, Anoop Singh, Kamal Kumar Chhetri, Rajesh Gurung, Mek Bahadur Gurung, Shivcharan Prasad, Arun Kumar Chhetri, Dhirendra Kumar Shahi, Sandeep Chhetri, Anil Kumar Thapa, Major Surya Pratap Singh, Mohan Singh, Jagat Bahadur Gurung and Col RS Dhami.
Cabinet Minister Ganesh Joshi, while saluting the families of the martyrs, said, “We cannot bring back the martyrs, but we can definitely give due respect to their families, which they have not been given till date. At the initiative of the Prime Minister, it has happened for the first time that respect has been given to the jawan and the kisan in the true sense.”
He recalled his experiences during the Shaheed Samman Yatra, when families of martyrs were greatly moved by the respect given to them. He said that the civilisations that forget to respect their martyrs, their future generations forget to respect that civilisation itself.
Also present were freedom fighter Ram Pratap Bahuguna, Anil Goyal, Sitaram Bhatt, Mayor Sunil Uniyal ‘Gama’, Cantt MLA Savita Kapoor, Rajpur MLA Khajan Das, Vinay Goyal, Poonam Nautiyal, Rajiv Gurung, Vinay Goyal, Surendra Rana, Manjit Rawat, etc.
