Mumbai:
Retired Assistant Commissioner of Police Shamsher Khan Pathan -
who while in uniform carried out several drug busts and arrested
toughened criminals, on Wednesday joined hands with the youth-force
and pledged for a drug-free Maharashtra.
At a function held at the Cement Ground, near Antop Hill police
station, Wadala, which coincided with anniversary day of the
political party Awami Vikas Party (AVP) he had launched a year
back, hundreds of youth joined hands with him and took
the vow pledging to eradicate the menace of drugs from Mumbai and
Maharashtra.
Pathan retired in 2012 and later formed the Avami Vikas Party. He said that he had spoken to various NGOs and rehabilitation
centres, hospitals, which would be providing concessional
treatments.
Youths would also be performing street plays at various places in
the city.
Pathan said that Home Minister R R Patil, who is largely
credited with closure of dance bars and continuous crackdown on
gambling dens and illicit liquor joints, should take a tough
stance and order police swoop on drug peddlers and couriers.
"Youths are the future of India.....we depend on them, but we have
to take this menace of drugs out from the society," Pathan, the
AVP President, said amidst thunderous applause.
"We would be working at various levels, right from society, slums,
colleges and take it up as a mission," AVP general secretary Salim
Alware said.
He also said that Dalits, Muslims, OBCs and downtrodden people
should come under one umbrella to fight out the injustice meted to
them by the ruling alliance.
Speaking about AVP, he said that though his party was not in power
in any way and just one year old, they were instrumental in taking
up issues of the ignored classes which include appointment of
office bearers of Maulana Azad Financial Corporation.
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