J. Jayanthi, a B.Sc nursing graduate, who got married at Namakkal on Wednesday, and her parents were in for a pleasant surprise when she got a congratulatory message along with a gift cheque of ₹ 50,000 from Union Minister of State for Finance Pon Radhakrishnan.
Jayanthi is the younger sister of J. Muthukrishnan of Salem city, a research scholar of Jawaharlal Nehru University (JNU), New Delhi, who allegedly committed suicide at his friend’s residence in New Delhi in March last year.
The untimely demise of Muthukrishnan, hailing from a poor Dalit family from Salem, had hogged the headlines then. Mr. Pon Radhakrishnan had helped the family in getting the autopsy done without any delay and later accompanied the body from New Delhi to Salem.
In a gesture of gratefulness, M. Jeevanantham, father of late Muthurkrishnan, had extended invitation to the Union Minister for Jayanthi’s marriage with A. Ebinezar of Namakkal.
Realising the impoverished condition of the family, Mr. Pon Radhakrishnan sent a gift cheque of ₹. 50,000 along with a message greeting the new couple.
The letter of the Minister reached R. P. Gopinath, president of the Salem urban district unit of the BJP, on Wednesday morning, with a request to hand over the same in person to the bride.
“The cheque is an elder brother's seer varisai for the bride”, Mr. Radhakrishnan mentioned in the letter, according to Mr. Gopinath. The bride received the greetings message and the cheque with tears welling up her eyes.
“It was a moving gesture on the part of the Union Minister to remember us and we are overwhelmed”, Mr. Jeevanantham told The Hindu in a voice choked with emotion.
