The Hindu : Sunil Dutt, others to adopt 1,000 Gujarat school children

Online edition of India's National Newspaper
Saturday, May 18, 2002

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Sunil Dutt, others to adopt 1,000 Gujarat school children

By Our Special Correspondent

AHMEDABAD MAY 17. People and the trading community in the Mumbai north-west parliamentary constituency, represented in the Lok Sabha by Hindi film actor, Sunil Dutt, have decided to "adopt'' 1,000 school children, who have been victims of the Gujarat riots, for one year.

Announcing this here today at the end of his three-day visit to the riot-affected areas of the State, Mr. Dutt said the people and traders in his constituency had decided to contribute funds to provide school uniform, textbooks, and other educational requirements for a year to the children. He said he would be in touch with voluntary organisations, which would be requested to provide a list of such needy children belonging to both the communities.

Mr. Dutt said he not made the visit as a Congress MP and that the funds would not come from the party. It would be the efforts of non-political people keen to contribute their mite for the welfare of the society.

He said his conversation with some affected people at the relief camps reminded him of the partition days when he himself as a refugee from Pakistan had to spend days in relief camps. "Nothing seems to have changed in 55 years and the country has remained divided on communal lines,'' he regretted.

Mr. Dutt said that in situations such as the Gujarat riots, people needed to rise above political considerations. The present concern of all should be how to rehabilitate the affected. "I do not blame the Government, police or bureaucracy for whatever has happened, the blaming game will not take us any further. Let us join hands to rehabilitate the uprooted to their homes for a new life.''

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Sunil Dutt, others to adopt 1,000 Gujarat school children