The Delhi-based NGO, Human Welfare Foundation (HWF), has come up to adopt a family of Uttar Pradesh with five blind children after Munauwar (60) and his wife Rubina (55) pleaded for mercy killing in their letter sent to President Pratibha Patil. The family was fed up of their penury and the burden of their five blind children in Uttar Pradesh’s Mau district, had sought mercy killing for their entire family.
HWF made the announcement to adopt the family at a Press Conference in Varanasi on April 22.
President Jamaat-e-Islami Hind Uttar Pradesh (East) Maulana Waliullah Saeedi Falahi led a delegation to Mau and met the affected members of the family. He assured them of adopting the entire family on behalf of HWF.
Munauwar and his wife Rubina have pleaded for mercy killing in their letter sent to President Pratibha Patil, Uttar Pradesh Governor B.L. Joshi, state Chief Minister Mayawati and authorities of Mau district, about 300 km from Lucknow.
“We don’t want to live any more. It’s miserable. We are not even able to arrange food for ourselves on a daily basis,” Munauwar told reporters in Mau on April 23.
All his five children aged between 16-35 were born blind.
Munauwar, a resident of Mau’s Palia village, is the sole breadwinner in the family and has not been able to take care of his five blind sons and wife for the past several months.
Villagers normally provide leftovers to Munauwar’s family and that has kept them alive till now.
“Believe me, if the neighbours stop providing leftovers to us, we will all eventually die of starvation,” he said.