KOLKATA: Touched by heart wrenching photograph of a 12-year-old girl’s living accommodation, a tattered plastic sheet as the shed and a few gunny bags stitched together as the walls, messiah of migrants Sonu Sood’s long arm of welfare travelled a distance of 2,500 km, and reached a remote pocket in north Bengal’s Jalpauguri district.
After noticing the photograph of Kirshti Chhetri’s ‘house’ on a Twitter handle of the girl’s neighbour, Sood funded to build a house for the daughter of a jobless migrant worker. When the girl, who lost her mother few years ago, named her new house as Sonu Sood Niwas, the actor tweeted, saying ‘’Now I have home in Jalpaiguri.’’
The Class-IV student’s father neither does not have a smartphone nor he accesses social networking platforms but her plight reached Sood after one of her neighbours Sonal Singh, who lives at Kota in Rajasthan, tweeted with the picture of her makeshift house and tagged the actor.
‘’I never imagined a personality like Sonu will react and respond to my tweet. I am simple person and helping out Krishti was not in my capacity. We will never forget what he has done for the girl,’’ said Sonal.
With the financial help of Sood, Krishti’s father, who became jobless during lockdown, constructed a concrete house and showing gratitude to the actor, the house was named after the name of the man who appeared to be messiah for the family.
Raju Karmakar, one of Krishti’s neighbour, said, ‘’We witnessed how the little girl was struggling. She and her father used to stay at the shanty in monsoon and winter facing all odds and tough situations. The actor living in thousands of kms away from here reacted to her plight and responded. We all are grateful to him,’’ he said.
On seeing Krishti’s newly constructed house, Sood said on his Twitter handle, ‘’A nice house has been constructed. Now I can say, I have a home in Jalpaiguri.’’