SRINAGAR, Mar 17:
A Kashmiri man seeking medical help for his newborn, a Bihar girl facing eve-teasing on board a train and a Rajasthan businessman looking for the person who owes him money — all find a ‘madadgar’ (a good Samaritan) in the CRPF, the country’s largest paramilitary force.
The faceless 21-member ‘Madadgar’ team of the CRPF has been providing help not only to people in the militancy-affected Jammu and Kashmir but other parts of India as well.
The 24×7 helpline, No. 14411, was the brainchild of CRPF’s Inspector General (Operations) Zulfiquar Hasan as long spells of curfew had become routine in Kashmir in 2016 due to the widespread violence in the aftermath of the killing of Burhan Wani, the poster boy of Hizbul Mujahideen terror group.
The initiative, which started in January 2017, has many success stories and attracted huge appreciations from the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) as well as the Union Home Ministry.
A few days ago, the phone at the Kashmir-based ‘Madadgar’ unit started ringing in the dead of night and the call was from Boniyar in Baramulla town of North Kashmir. The caller, the father of a three-day-old baby, was crying and asking for help as the newborn required immediate transfusion of O-negative blood.
Immediately, the nearest CRPF unit was alerted and jawans with O-negative blood rushed to the district hospital, after taking adequate security precautions, and donated blood for the newborn.
The baby was discharged from the hospital a few days later.
Not far from Boniyar lives Mushtaq Tantray. A resident of Gundbrath in Sopore district, Tantray had been suffering from chronic kidney disease for three-four years. However, in 2016 his financial condition deteriorated and he had to sell everything and shift to a tin- shed dwelling along with his wife, Mubinaa, and three school-going children.
“They (Madadgar) are God-sent angels. They have saved me,” says Tantray, whose hameo-dialysis is being taken care by the CRPF for the past two years. Besides this, he also gets a regular supply of medicines from the paramilitary force, which has been fighting militancy in Kashmir Valley for the past three decades.
“This is an effort by the CRPF to build bridge with people of the this country. The results have been encouraging and I am sure that we will be able to serve people better,” Hasan, who is a West Bengal-cadre IPS officer, said. (PTI)
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