Community policing improves education in Jharkhand's Maoist-hit - India News and Travel Times Provides India-centric and other News and Features

Police at a Maoist-infested village in Jharkhand have provided shelter and distributed reading materials to help improve education of the village youth. The police have launched community policing in Kone village in Jharkhand's Latehar district to win the confidence of villagers, who are usually not a part of the mainstream. The police also distributed carpets and other study materials to encourage the village youth to attend the makeshift school. "We want all the children in the village to receive education. We face many hurdles...we went to the police station with our problems and they gave us one carpet, and if we could get the other materials required to teach then we would be able to teach the villagers properly," said Satan Devi, a volunteer teacher. Ravi Kant Prasad, officer-in-charge at Latehar's Sardar Police Station, said that since the Maoists often blew up schools in the district, they felt the need to take the initiative. "When I went there, I felt that there was a need to educate the children and the people of the village because only recently the Maoists damaged schools twice, so we are trying our level-best to provide education to the people. So in the first phase, we have given them carpet and in the second phase we will give them pen, copybooks and lamps," said Prasad. Jharkhand is among the worst Maoists affected areas in the country. The main objective of the Maoists is to prevent the development of infrastructure in remote areas, which so far has remained their exclusive domain. The Maoists claim they are fighting for the rights of poor farmers and landless labourers, but they are fast losing credibility as they continue attacking schools, hospitals and infrastructure projects.