Jawan’s widow gets ₹13.5L via Akshay’s Bharat Ke Veer site

NEWDELHI:A week after BSF head constable Prem Sagar was beheaded by Pakistani intruders on the LoC in Jammu and Kashmir, his wife received donations worth ₹13.59 lakh from a portal India’s Bravehearts (Bharat Ke Veer) launched by the home ministry in collaboration with actor Akshay Kumar.

The money was directly deposited into the bank account of Sagar’s wife.

Donations received through the website are what the dependents of paramilitary personnel killed in action receive through central and state governments.

“Encouraging response to Bharat Ke Veer website. Within a month the portal has received more than ₹2 crore for helping martyr’s families,” tweeted home minister Rajnath Singh on Sunday.

Once the dependents get ₹15 lakh, their details are removed from the site. “We have received inquiries from NRIs, rickshaw pullers and school-going kids about the website. Initially, the payment gateway was not accepting donations from outside of India but that problem has been sorted,” said the ministry official.

“A school kid wanted to know as to how he can donate ₹50 without a bank account. A rickshaw puller asked how he can donate using his mobile phone,” the official added.

The ministry has written to the Reserve Bank of India to facilitate donations through Paypal for those who reside outside of India or don’t have accounts with Indian banks.

CRPF director in general Vijay Kumar, who is coordinating with the management of the website, told HT that so far more than 35,000 transactions had taken place on the website indicating donations of smaller amounts.

Details of 114 personnel from eight central paramilitary forces —BSF, CISF, CRPF, ITBP, Assam Rifles, NDRF, NSG and SSB — are displayed on the website as of now.