M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, April 4: The Latehar police have formed a peace and harmony committee with an equal number of men drawn from the Hindu and Muslim communities.
This social engineering is the brainchild of SP Anjani Anjan. He is done with the stereotyped peace committee by replacing it with the peace and harmony committee.
Speaking to Lagatar24.com, the SP said, “This peace and harmony committee at each of our police station is an independent body of the Hindus and the Muslims who have their voices and faces in the society.”
There is no police intervention as this body is free to hold its sittings, discuss delicate and sensitive issues and then inform the police about the resolutions taken by the committee.
Prashant Prasad, the officer in charge of the Balumath police station in Latehar district, said today, “The committee does not hold its meeting in the premises of a police station. Instead, this committee holds meeting in some local hotel.”
On social engineering, this police officer said, “The committee has a Hindu president and Muslim vice president. Similarly, there are 2 Hindu secretaries and 2 Muslim secretaries. The distribution of the post or portfolio is just and fair and in proportion to each other.”
Anjan went on to add that he had attended this committee at Dehi Muroop and Chhipadohar. It was an experience worth sharing, he said.
He said people of both communities feel free to vent out their grievances. This leaves no room for communal bias or prejudice. Clarity of the situation comes to the front, said the SP.
The Balumath police officer narrated two incidents where public tranquillity could have been devastated but due to this committee, the situation was handled tactfully, peacefully and well in time.
The two incidents were of stone pelting on the procession and the uprooting of a religious flag. “Both the incidents had all the ingredients for major communal tension but this committee played a prompt and decisive role and the situation was calmed down,” recalled Prashant Prasad.
SP Anjani Anjan said, “I have this strong conviction that saner elements of both the communities have great potential to give peace and harmony a big chance and this is what we are experimenting here in Latehar which is all communally sedate as people here live with trust of each other and civil and police administration.”
