R Krishna Das
Raipur, November 6
Bollywood and Chollywood celebrities campaigning against drugs in uncharted Korea district, tucked away unobtrusively in the north-east of Chhattisgarh, sounds surreal. But an Indian Police Service (IPS) official has made it possible.
Santosh Singh, a 2011-batch IPS official now posted as Superintendent of Police in Korea, has propelled the celebrities from the Bollywood and also Chhattisgarh’s cinema world to invigorate Nijaat (riddance)—a campaign against drugs and narcotics launched by the district police. The experiment is yielding the desired results.
Familiar faces from the film industry, Prabhu Deva, Arbaaz Khan, Rajpal Yadav, Kailash Kher, Sunil Grover, Virendra Saxena, Bhagwan Tiwari are among those whom have joined the campaign; communicating virtually and convincing the people to quit drugs and liquor. They have circulated video clips appealing people to help Korea police in its campaign Nijaat.
Similarly, the Korea police has associated Chhattisgarh cinema’s leading frames and folk figures including Padmashree Anuj Sharma, Pandwani folk song-drama folk singer Padmavibhushan Teejan Bai, Padmashree Mamta Chandrakar, Zakir Hussain, Gopal K Singh, Yogesh Agarwal, Prakash Awasthi etc. in the campaign. Earlier, well-known Jasgeet singers of Chhattisgarh Dilip Shadangi, Rakesh Sharma, Mona Sen, Sunil Tiwari, Anchal Sharma and others too extended their succor.
Singh has taken the programme in a mission mode and has been steadfastly supported by his Additional Superintendent of Police Madhulika Singh. Both the officers are personally present in the Nijaat programme organised at the village level. Besides, the stringent action under the orbit of law has further added value to the campaign as it has unleashed a reign of fear among the peddlers.
Since the month of July, 130 people have been arrested in 105 cases registered under narcotics acts while 515 arrests have been made in 481 cases in the sale of illegal liquor. More than 165 public awareness programs have been conducted, counseling hundreds of drug addicts and successfully convincing them to quit the habit.
