Discrimination in petrol pump allotment: 26/11 victim’s widow

Mumbai: Sunanda Shinde was 36 when her husband, a ward boy at a south Mumbai hospital was killed by terrorists, who also slayed 165 others during the 26/11 Mumbai attack.

Ten years on, she feels the Government discriminated while deciding on compensation for the 26/11 martyrs. Sunanda’s husband Bhagan Shinde worked at the Gokuldas Tejpal Hospital. That fateful night, on hearing gun shots, he had gone to a nearby phone booth to call his wife and kids when he was shot from behind at the hospital gate. “The Govt should not have discriminated while giving compensation to the families of martyrs,” says Sunanda, who now works as an ‘ayah’ (maid) in the same hospital. “Kin of martyrs from police got petrol pumps besides the compensation amount, a house and jobs. But the Govt did not allot petrol pumps to martyrs who were from Government hospitals,” she said.