Four days after Udaipur gripped into communal tension following the attack on a school boy, the ‘City of Lakes' is back to normal. A class X student was knife-attacked by his classmate with belong to different community.
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Two years back, Udaipur had witnessed toxicity of communal disharmony when two Islamic activists had beheaded a tailor Kanhaiya Lal in broad daylight. The city, which had limped back to normalcy, can't afford to dive again into any communal tension.
Udaipur collector Arvind Poswal was successful in thwarting any attempt to create communal disharmony in the city following the attack.
What Arvind Poswal did right?
The collector immediately swung into action and engaged people from both the communities to dispel any miscommunication.
The administration detained the attacker and his father on the day of incident itself, which cooled off the tempers. The boy was later sent to Juvenile Home on court's instructions.
Poswal visited hospital and released video message consoling the family members of the victims and calling upon people to keep calm.
Poswal pressed prohibitory orders into action including imposition of Section 144 to rule out any gathering of crows. He kept in touch with the hospital authority for treatment update of the boy and ensured that all communication channels with community groups are open.
Poswal is regularly interacted with influential people of both the communities and pacified them. The administration also bulldozed the attacker's house after it was found that the house was constructed on forest land. While the action administration gave a message that the government is dealing with the crime strictly, it also sent a message that the offenders were severely punished.
Poswal engaged with influential people from Muslim community, who condemned the incident and prayed for early discharge of the victim. This cut down any communal link with the incident and city comes back to normal.
As far as the treatment of the boy, Poswal said that the government is doing every bit to provide the best treatment to the boy admitted in the hospital. The chief minister Bhajan Lal Sharma also took cognisance of the sensitivity of the incident and sent specialist doctors from Jaipur on a chartered plan to Udaipur. The doctors attended the victim, who is showing signs of improvement.
The collector called upon people of Udaipur to join him for praying speedy recovery of the boy, who had suffered knife-attack from his classmate during school hours.
Prakash Bhandari is a veteran journalist with over 50 years of experience. He has worked with The Times of India for 30 years and contributed to leading publications as well as international news agency AFP.
