Madhu, 33, is the daughter of Sultana Begum and the late Mohammad Bedar Bakht, the great grandson of Bahadur ShahZafar
\\\"On behalf of Coal India Ltd, I feel pleasure in offering employment to Madhu. It will be agreat tributetothe last Mughal emperor who played a key role during the first war of independence in 1857,\\\" Coal India Chairman ParthaBhattacharyya said
\\\"It is the duty of the country to repay its debt to the family of those who sacrificed their lives for the country\\\'s freedom, especially in view of the recently concluded celebration of the 150th anniversary of the 1857 uprising,\\\"hesaid
The employment letter will be hand- edovertoMadhubyUnionMinisterfor Coal Sriprakash Jaiswal at a function to beheld in the city nextmonth. The move by Coal India came in re- sponse to a plea by a New Delhi-based scribe couple Neena and Shivnath Jha who had launched a nationwide move ment\\\"AndolanEkPustakSe\\\"underthe aegisofBismillah:TheBeginningFoundation
The initiative was launched to rehabilitate the descendants of forgotten heroes who fought for the honour of India
\\\"Mohammad Bedar Bakht died in 1980 leaving his widow at the mercy of God to maintain herself and their children on the bank of river Hooghly in West Bengal\\\'s Howrah district. At that time she was in her 30s. Nobody came to her rescue for the past three decades,\\\" said Shivnath Jha
\\\"I don\\\'t have words to express my feelings. The job will not only give an inner strength to a woman like me, but also protect me and my family,\\\" Madhusaid
Itwasasuddenturnoffortuneforthe family languishing in extreme poverty and squalor in the Cowies Ghat slum of Howrah district. Madhu\\\'s mother Sultana Begum runs a tea shop in the locality. It is her family\\\'s sole source of sustenance. Bahadur Shah Zafar was placed on the throne in 1837. He was the last of the Mughal emperors who ruled over the Indian subcontinent for some 300 years.ThefirstWar ofIndependencein 1857 startedduring his reign
ThesepoysdeclaredZafarthesymbol of freedom and nominated him as their commander-in-chief. He was exiled to Rangoon (now Yangon) in 1858 where helived forfiveyearsanddiedin1862at the age of87.
(courtesy khaleej times)