Amritsar boy to make 3 demands when he meets PM to receive bravery award: ‘Fix bridge that killed my friends, build hospital in village’

Muhawa and Thuluwal are near the Indo-Pak border and students need to travel long distances to go to school. Karanbeer and others from his school travel 15 kilometres extra every day to avoid the narrow bridge.

Now 17, Karanbeer is set to meet Prime Minister Narendera Modi on January 24 to receive the Sanjay Chopra Bravery Award for his daring act. He is happy, but he also has three demands to make from the PM, the top of course being repairing the bridge.

“I have three demands to make from Prime Minister Narendra Modi when I meet him. First, I will ask him to provide funds to complete the construction of the bridge and its railing so that no such accident happens again. We travel more than 15 kilometres extra every day to avoid this bridge. But still, many other school buses use it every day and so it could result in another accident any day. Construction of the bridge will not only save time, but will also save lives,” he said.

“My second demand is construction of a hospital at Attari. Some children died on that day because there was no good hospital at Attari and time was wasted in carrying them to Amritsar. Every day, 30,000 people visit Attari for the retreat ceremony. It should have a proper hospital so that timely medical aid is provided in cases of an emergency,” Karanbeer says.

“Third, I want the prime minister to end the drug menace in the villages bordering Pakistan. We have drugs coming from Pakistan and then there are people who are supplying these drugs into our villages. All this should stop.”
Surjit Singh, husband of the woman sarpanch of Muhawa village, said, “We had got only Rs 7.5 lakh to reconstruct the bridge from the Panchayat department. We have already spent Rs 13 lakh on it from the account of village panchayat. Now, we need Rs 2.5 lakh more to complete the railing. The administration says it has no more funds.”