Thirty-year-old Khilona Devi carried a five-month-old baby in her womb as she ran along with other aspirants on the railway grounds in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly town as part of the physical fitness test for the recruitment in Group-D posts in North Eastern Railway (NER) a couple of days back.
Khilona Devi, like many other aspirants, ran the 400 metre distance in the required time limit to qualify for the next stage of tests, which included written and medical, without bothering that it might harm the yet-to-be-born.
With signs of exhaustion clearly visible on her face, she, however, quickly slumped down on the ground to take the much-needed rest after completing the race.
“My husband does not earn anything…..he does not have a job and we also do not have any agricultural land to depend upon’’, she said, making it very clear that she was left with no alternative.
She said that she had applied for the job four years back but the recruitment process started only recently.
Rajendra Singh, the public relations officer (PRO) of the NER said that Khilona Devi took part in the race at her own risk. “She took the risk and came out successful’’, Singh said.
Only recently several unemployed youths had died while travelling on the roof an overcrowded train after they were thrown away after hitting a narrow railway foot over bridge near Bareilly.
The youths, in thousands, were returning home after the CRPF officials, all of a sudden, cancelled the recruitment rally after calling the aspirants for the tests.