Team News Riveting
Jagdalpur, April 15
The top brass of the district administration turning up in a hotel to taste Jalebi and Samosa is a surreal scene. But the streets of Bijapur district headquarters stood witness to the weird view on Monday.
Led by District Collector Anurag Pandey, the senior officials of the civil and police administration Monday trudged down the streets in the district headquarters of restive Bijapur. The officials did shopping and enjoyed snacks at the eateries. The exercise was part of a large drawn strategy, literally, designed by the 2009-batch Indian Administrative Service (IAS) officer.
The officials came out on the streets to boost the morale of the shopkeepers to defy the Maoists’ call for Bijapur bandh on Monday. Pandey has taken up the task of fighting the rebels on different front; building a sense of confidence among the people towards the administration.
“It was seen earlier that the bandh called by the extremists was spontaneous as people responded in fear,” Pandey said. Since the success of the bandh was circulating negative messages, Pandey decided to hit at the core and initiated the process to foil the bandh. Frustrated by the continuous action against their cadre, a bandh was called by the outlawed Communist Party of India (Maoist) in five states including Chhattisgarh on Monday.
Two days ago, Pandey convened a high-level meeting in which representatives of the business organizations, private educational institutions, community heads and transporters were present. The District Collector and Superintendent of Police appealed to all section of the society to thwart the bandh. They assured all necessary covers from the administration to the people to overcome from the shadow of red terror.
The conscious attempt won the hearts and minds of the people. Businesses in Bijapur remained as usual on Monday; schools and all other establishments remained open while shops and business establishments traded normally. People also came out in large numbers in the markets.
Interestingly, this was the second time within a fortnight when Bijapur Collector foiled the bandh attempt of the Maoists in the district. On April 3 this month, Bijapur flouted the Maoists whip and remained open despite rebels’ bandh call.
“Once dubbed as the worst Maoist-infested district, Bijapur is moving towards normalcy and the people here have started completely rejecting the evil ideology,” Pandey, alumni of Rewa Sainik School and Delhi’s JNU (Jawahar Lal Nehru University), said. He said that those who try to mislead the people by creating an atmosphere of fear and confusion in the district, no matter what level of people they are, the destroyers of democracy will not be spared in any form.
It is not accepted, the rebels brutally killing the innocent tribal people and villagers, will not be spared. The people of the district had rejected the Maoist bandh call twice in the month, he added.
