'Dead' man guarding and also getting salary

Mumbai, Jun 29: A security guard, Allauddin Sheikh with the local civic body, goes work regularly and gets salary every month. Everything was fine except that in 2009, the 52-year-old was declared "dead" by civic authorities.

"In May 2010, I got to know through my colleague that I had been declared dead in BMC's records by one of our clerks on Oct 27, 2009. I have been reporting to work daily and also get my salary on time," said Sheikh.

Sheikh joined Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation (BMC) in 1981 and has six years left for retirement. He is currently posted at the G-south ward office.

"I'm thankful to God that at least my wife, who is suffering from high blood pressure, was not informed about it. But this is ridiculous. How they can declare me dead and on what basis?" said Sheikh.

Sheikh is roaming rounds of the civic body and meeting officials to make sure the error is rectified as soon as possible.

Sheikh had taken a loan of Rs 1.25-lakh from Municipal Corporation Bank for his daughter's wedding in 2006. Now the clerical error brought trouble for him.

"Since then, I have been paying an installment of about Rs 3,000 per month. A sum of Rs 35,000 was yet to be paid. When bank officials got to know about my 'death', they deducted the pending amount from my account without my knowledge," said Sheikh.

"We admit that our staff committed a mistake and we are rectifying it. It happened mistakenly. Sheikh was irregular on duty and this might be one of the reasons why the clerk may have marked him as dead," said S V Kulkarni, the joint Security Officer of BMC.

OneIndia News