Patna: With the devastating floods leaving a long trail of destruction in the southern Indian state of Kerala, people from all walks of life are coming forward to lend a helping hand to the humanity in crisis.
The touching gesture by a schoolgirl from Bihar who donated her gold chain which she had got as her birthday gift from her parents to the floods victims of Kerala has become talk of the town.
Zabia Iftikhar who studies in Grade 10 in a private school donated her precious ornament on Tuesday when the school authorities launched drive to collect relief from the students in the classrooms. She had got this gold chain as a birthday gift from her father Iftikhar Ahmad who works in Saudi Arabia.
School authorities were surprised when they saw the schoolgirl removing the gold necklace and pushing it inside the donation box. That was really surprising since most of her colleagues had donated only little amount of their pocket money.
“Nothing could be more precious than the lives of the people in crisis. My first priority is to help our own countrymen badly affected by the floods in Kerala,” Zabia told her schoolmates. The school authorities said they were very proud of the little girl.
Zabia’s gesture has reminded the philanthropic act of a little girl from Tamil Nadu Anupriya who donated her four-year piggy bank savings of Rs9,000 to the flood victims of Kerala. The nine-year-old girl had been saving up for four years to buy a bicycle for herself but ended up donating her entire saving to the flood victims, earning her huge praise.
In another lovely gesture, the Muslim villagers in neighbouring Jharkhand state went on collecting donations for the Kerala flood victims shortly after offering namaz for Eid Al Adha today.
TV grabs showed the youths in skull caps rushing towards the crowds of faithful and gesturing them to push something inside the donation box. “Kerala has suffered devastating floods this year. Everyone should come forward,” said Sarfaraj Ahmad.
But there were not all who did it voluntarily. A Rashtriya Janata Dal lawmaker from Bihar Bhola Yadav was forced to donate Rs250,000 to the Kerala Flood Relief Fund as a condition for quashing his case of contempt of court.
Yadav had recently questioned the judgement awarded to party chief Lalu Prasad in a fodder scam case after which a contempt of court proceeding was started against him. Yadav was making rounds of the court in Jharkhand for the past seven months in connection with the case.
The lawmaker got a major relief on Tuesday when the court ended his contempt proceedings after he tendered an unconditional apology in writing and also agreed to donate Rs250,000 to the Kerala Relief Fund.
