Sons demand elderly mother's property,to take care of her!

Dulalisundari Hazra and her land sandwiched between two walls. Picture by Dhiman Roy

Bhatar (Burdwan), Nov. 2: The sons of a former Burdwan MLA who drove their septuagenarian widowed mother out of her own home have agreed to “shelter” and feed her at a price: a sliver of land that is her last property.

Dulalisundari Hazra has accepted the condition and will stay with Asim and Asit, both of whom had refused to keep her citing a litany of excuses, for six months each. “I am feeling happy. But you can’t get food and shelter for nothing, not even from your sons,” the 76-year-old said after coming back home at Palar village in Burdwan’s Bhatar today.

Driven out a year and a half ago, Dulalisundari had recently sought police help after failing to get any aid from the Congress, the party her husband Shantimoy had represented as an MLA in 1969.

Sanjay Kundu, the officer in charge of Bhatar police station, warned the sons of criminal proceedings if they threw out their mother again. He held a meeting last evening with Dulalisundari’s sons and one of her daughters after The Telegraph reported her plight in its October 29 edition.

“I told Asim and Asit that if they threw out their mother again, criminal cases would be initiated against them. I will monitor the situation,” Kundu said.

Under the Maintenance and Welfare of Parents and Senior Citizens Act, 2008, a son who inherits the property of his father or mother has to look after them when they are in need and pay for their maintenance. Shantimoy died of heart attack on January 20, 2008, leaving behind his wife, two sons and four daughters, all of whom are married.

At the meeting yesterday, Asim, 55, the elder of the brothers, told officer Kundu that he had a 30-year-old unemployed son. “He (Asim) asked Dulalisundari for the 1.5 cottah land, located in the market to set up a grocery shop for his son Arup. His mother agreed to help her grandson but her younger son Asit also claimed a share of the plot. So, Dulalisundari decided to divide the plot equally between the sons,” Kundu said.

The Rs 3,000 — half of her husband’s MLA pension which Asit, 50, had asked Dulalisundari to hand over and threw her out when she refused — that Dulalisundari gets will be deposited in a bank for her needs.

https://www.telegraphindia.com/1101103/jsp/bengal/story_13133570.jsp