Gurdaspur Diary: Children are not to mould, but to unfold

Children are our most valuable resource. They are not things to be molded — they are people to be unfolded, and for which they are quite ready. Keeping this in mind, Prajakta Nilkanth, Chairperson of the Child Welfare Council, Punjab, organised the 39th National Learn to Live Together camp at a local school in Mohali last week. Prajakta is the wife of IAS officer Nilkanth Avhad who was Deputy Commissioner (DC) of Gurdaspur in 2009. Six children from the Gurdaspur-based Preliminary Education Study Centre, where the progeny of the city's beggars are imparted free education, took part in the proceedings as part of the Punjab contingent. The Centre is run by philanthropist Romesh Mahajan. For Mahajan, it was indeed a moment of pride as the underprivileged children of his centre rubbed shoulders with their counterparts drawn from 15 other states. Apart from taking part in an assortment of cultural activities, these children were also taught the virtues of maintaining a good and strong character. These children were also imparted priceless wisdom, through these words of Martin Luther King: "I have a dream that my children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the colour of their skin, but by the content of their character." The camp was inaugurated by Punjab Governor Banwarilal Purohit. The kids returned to Gurdaspur an enlightened lot. This one outing did done great things for them. It actually turned out to be a learning curve of sorts. The six-day camp instilled values that will hold them in good stead in future. For Prajakta, it was a case of teaching children how to think and not what to think.

Search operation a matter of national security

The search operation carried out by cops of police districts of Gurdaspur, Batala and Pathankot to nab two suspected terrorists ended without any success. After Pathankot SSP Suhail Qasim Mir received a call from the control room that two people carrying arms had forcibly entered a farm house near Bamiyal, located near the International Border (IB), he was quick to constitute a team which would take on the ultras. He himself joined the search operation in which 1,000 men drawn from all three police districts and the BSF were taking part. So did Gurdaspur police chief Harish Dayama. The cops were not in a position to take risks as they had the 2015 Dinanagar police station and the 2016 Pathankot Air Force station attacks at the back of their minds. The operation continued throughout the day. Later in the evening, officers started to claim that there were chances that the alleged militants might have moved to Kathua district in the neighbouring state of J&K. However, the operation was not called off because the cops wanted confirmation that the suspects had actually left Pathankot city for some other place. A senior official claimed that while on the one hand, the significance of the inputs cannot be cast aside, on the other, such an operation drains the taxpayers' money. The moot question is: Can police officers afford to disregard inputs on militants just because money is spent on the subsequent operations? No, they cannot as it is a matter of national security.

(Contributed By Ravi Dhaliwal)

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