About two dozen Muslims namely Mumtaz Ahmad Khan, Azhar Pappu, Imam, Zeya, Wasim, Reyaz, Neyazu etc after offering their congregational Friday prayer in various mosques here in Daltonganj converged at Jai Bhavani Sangh venue to felicitate president of Sri Kendriya Durga Puja Mahasamiti and Durga Puja Pandal chiefs under the banner of Muslim Samaj.
This is the second episode of this kind as it was in the year 2018 that this kind of amity and honour was launched here by the Muslim Samaj for the devotees of the Durga puja and the brain behind this were Mumtaz Khan and Azhar Pappu
The president of Sri Kendriya Durga Puja Mahasamiti Durga Johri came with his band of puja pandal chiefs and decided to receive honour as the last man.
However a central peace committee meeting called today by DC Palamu Shantanu Kumar Agrahari and SP Palamu Ajay Linda around the same time but at different venue than this Muslim Samaj function created a situation that was avoidable for the cause of promoting more and more such people to hold such felicitation on communities’ celebrations.
At the Muslim Samaj function came SDO S K Singh, who was felicitated and then within minutes SDO pushed off for this central peace committee meeting going on at the Pdt Deendayal Smriti Bhavan. Had he remained present there all through there in this Muslim Samaj felicitation meeting there would not have fallen any hell on earth said many there.
The Muslim Samaj however went with its honour drive then but wished civil and police officials ought to be there too as this programme was more to cement to tie between the Muslims and the Hindus.
Sources said Muslim Samaj had spent more than 50,000 rupees for this show of amity and understanding.
Back at the central peace committee meeting SP and DC gave speeches and here again DC left the meeting citing a video conferencing with Election Commission of India and it was Ajay Linda who remained seated on the dias along with his SDPOs and SDOs.
SP Linda was very candid when he said “Route decided and fixed for immersion passage would not be changed or diverted. Every puja pandal organizer should keep it in mind. If at all there arises any change of route then due permission from civil and police administration is to be taken.”
Linda then talked about space reaching the pandals when he said if any fire
erupts then it gets difficult to reach fire tender at the spot just because there is a congestion of space. He laid stress on CCTV at every pandal.
DC Agrahari in his speech explained that this central peace committee meeting has been organized to have a direct communication with peace committee members of blocks/ police stations of this district.
Agrahari said “ This is the first such central peace committee meeting” but when the Pioneer pointed out that central peace committee used to exist here and which held its meetings too till 2004 and then for some extreme
political interference this committee was abandoned towhich Agrahari said “We got it revived then after
15 long years.”
Peace committee members coming from blocks/ police stations were given mike to air their problems related to routes, immersion timing etc but majority of them just went on praising DC and SP forcing SDPO Hussainabd Vijay Kumar attending this meeting to ask speakers to concentrate on problem and not on plethora of platitudes!
One peace activist even recited six lines of poetry on this occasion.
