Suman Kumar Nitai, Staff Correspondent: Soloki Begum's nickname is Saleha Begum. Her husband is the late Tamizuddin Sarkar. Her home is in Krishnapur village, Lakshmipur, Kalam Union, Singra Upazila, Natore. According to her national identity card, Soloki Begum is 66 years old, but in reality she is over 90 years old.
Soloki Begum's husband was a goldsmith by profession. Soloki Begum's husband, Tamizuddin Sarkar, died of a snake bite during the Liberation War, leaving behind a son and five daughters. Shortly after her husband's death, the youngest of the five daughters, Sumi, died at the age of 7 after falling into a river. The eldest son, Isab Sarkar, is hearing and intellectually disabled.
After the death of her husband and youngest daughter, a dark shadow descended on Soloki Begum's life. She could not feed her five children alone. So she used to run her family by helping her neighbors and relatives. When her four daughters reached the age of marriage, she was worried about getting them married due to lack of money. Soloki Begum somehow got her three daughters married by getting help from others. But when she tried to get her fourth daughter married, she was disappointed due to lack of money. Unable to find any other way, she sold the house on her husband's four hundred acres of land and married off the youngest daughter.
For several years, she lived in her uncle's house because she had no home. Once, in the pursuit of livelihood, she moved from her uncle's house with her hearing and intellectually disabled eldest son to Omarpur village in Nandigram upazila of the neighboring Bogra district 20 years ago. With a tearful voice, the old woman Soloki Begum said, "Due to lack of home, I have been living from door to door with my disabled son in Omarpur, Nandigram. I help in the villages, towns, markets and markets all day long and somehow feed myself and my disabled son with whatever I get."
He has lived in different houses in Omarpur but lost a mobile phone and cash two years ago while staying at the house of a man named Alam. He used to receive disability allowance money in the name of his son Isber on the mobile phone. Leaving Alam's house, old Soloki Begum has now taken shelter in Hasen Ali's house near Omarpur Hat.
Old Soloki Begum said, "Even though I am so old, I have not received any old age allowance card. I heard that the Prime Minister is providing houses for the poor. I sometimes went to the members and chairman of Kalam Union, my husband's birthplace, but they did not give me an old age allowance card or a government house. Soloki Begum wants to live safely with her disabled son in a house under the old age allowance and the Prime Minister's shelter project. That is why she has made a heartfelt appeal to State Minister for Information and Communication Technology, Zunaid Ahmed Palak.
When asked about Soloki Begum, Singra's Kalam Union Chairman Mainul Haque Chunu said, "There is no landless person in my union who has not received a house under the Prime Minister's Ashrayan project. Besides, miking has been done for the elderly-widow allowance card. If Soloki Begum comes to us, we will provide her with sufficient support."
