Mojiful Rahima Sheiq was just another immigrant labourer who reached Kerala a week ago. The state is now sarcastically called as the ‘Dubai for job seekers from Bengal’. However, that has come true in Mojiful’s case, who bagged a state government lottery jackpot.
However the news, apart from a being a surprise, came more as a trauma to Mojiful who had sparsely seen even a thin bundle of large denomination currency notes.
When he learned that the Karunya lottery (instituted by government of Kerala to aid palliative treatment) he had taken last Saturday won the first prize of Rs 1 crore, the poor soul withdrew into his room fearing that suddenly turned a crore times more worthier. As Mojiful grew scared of facing strangers, his bunk mates took him to a local police station in Chevayur in Kozhikode.
The 22-year-old reached Kozhikode from Burdwan district in West Bengal with a vision to support his financially-ailing family. He reached the city last Thursday and on Friday, he went to work for the first time. On his way back from work, he bought the lottery for Rs 50 from a disabled lottery vendor whom he spotted in Vellimadukunnu town. However, on Monday morning when Mojiful realised he won a whopping Rs 1 crore from the lottery, he grew nervous.
He found shelter in Chevayur police station, where he told the officers he is scared to sit alone and could not exchange the ticket in a bank on Monday as it was a holiday. The officials who checked the ticket (KT-215092) figured out that the young migrant labourer’s claim was true.
On Tuesday, he handed over the lottery ticket to an SBI branch in Vellimadukunnu with the company of police. Even then, the chap was sceptical if the bank really was a true one.
Mojiful told police officials that he would like to eat some good food and would want to build big house in his village.
