Gurdaspur Diary: Jayantipuria’s gesture for addicts earns encomiums

Amandeep Jayantipuria is in the news once again. Known for his philanthropic initiatives, he has gone a step ahead by offering jobs to youth who get the dope monkey off their backs. He has gone public with an offer of providing a job with a monthly salary of Rs 15,000 to anyone who bids goodbye to the scourge of drugs. Police officers who are fighting the menace in and around the city claim this will go a long way in the recovery and rehabilitation of youngsters. It is common knowledge that Pakistani smugglers regularly send drones carrying payloads of pure-grade heroin into this district. It will be a complete travesty of truth to say that a part of the drug parcel does not enter Batala. Actually, it does and consequently it affects youngsters. Amandeep visited the rural areas and was stunned to know the extent to which the problem had struck roots. He has told addicts that he will pay them if they shun their habit. This is precisely what the doctor had ordered. On a rough estimate, 80 per cent of people who are trapped in the habit are unemployed. “Give these youngsters employment and you are giving them a chance to live. The road to recovery is challenging and not always easy to navigate. I have already started getting calls from people buried in the dope quagmire. I tell them to come to my office, prove that they are no longer hooked, get themselves registered and walk away with a job offering monthly salary of Rs 15,000,” he said. He says without testing the political waters, he can reach nowhere. He is not seeking an MP ticket right now but in the future, he will definitely have a fling if the services he is rendering to society in general and Batala in particular are any indication. A meeting with AICC general secretary KC Venugopal in Delhi last week set the cat amongst the pigeons in Congress circles. With this, he has donned the mantle of a leader. Leadership is the capacity to turn vision into reality, and Amandeep surely has this quality as he dons a new avatar as a leader.

Flawed staff-inmate ratio leads to violence in jail

Wednesday’s violence that rocked the Gurdaspur Central Jail is not unprecedented. Such incidents, admit jail officials, have taken place in the past and will continue to happen in the future too. This is because of the lopsided staff-inmate ratio. Unofficial figures put this at 1500:90. Such congestion in prisons is leading to tension among inmates. Prisoners say they want better facilities for them inside the jail while officials say this is not possible because of shortage of funds. Somebody must step in to defuse the situation. Otherwise, the volcano will continue to splutter lava here, there and everywhere. (Ravi Dhaliwal)

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