M F AHMAD
Daltonganj, April 1: Palamu’s top brasses of the civil and the police administration today held a meeting over the conduct and passage of two festivals, Sarhul and Ramnavmi.
Sources said DC Shashi Ranjan and SP Chandan Kumar Sinha conveyed to the attending civil and police officials to ensure that the state government’s standard operational procedure (SOP) for religious gatherings has to be enforced in word and spirit and no laxity will be brooked.
According to the state government’s SOP, the size of the gathering has been kept at 100 heads. The convergence sites are to have not more than 1000 heads. No religious gathering or passage after 6 in the evening will be allowed. The fourth is a ban on the use of pre-recorded songs and messages and DJ sound.
Sources said if the first three things are to keep Coronavirus at bay, the fourth related to text, song and music in the air is for the maintenance of the communal harmony which no one can afford to say no to.
Lagatar24.com correspondent spoke to a large section of people drawn from both the communities who said the best course of the district administration should be to ignore or overlook the defiant as their number may be counted on the fingers.
Any detention or sit-in of the people in the police station during the festivals defying orders of the state government will be like adding fuel to the fire.
A priest said, “Ask the officials if they have ever seen any street going empty in the evening when these festivals are around.” Ramnavmi festival is both day and night festivity, the priest reminded.
Much the DC Shashi Ranjan and SP Chandan Kumar Sinha and their teams down to sub-divisional offices to blocks ask people to abide by the standard operational procedure, the ground reality bespeaks just the reverse of what is said in respect of the size of the gathering convergence, blaring on the loudspeakers the sound, music and song accompanied by DJ.
