Blast victims’ friends form youth group for peace

At 2.30 pm on Sunday, hundreds of youth aged 18 to 25 will participate in peace marches in five cities across the country, including Mumbai.

At 2.30 pm on Sunday, hundreds of youth aged 18 to 25 will participate in peace marches in five cities across the country, including Mumbai.

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Organised under the banner Youth For Peace, the initiative is being put together by friends of Anindyee Dhar (19), Ankik Dhar (24) and Shilpa Goenka (23), who died in the terror blast at Pune’s German Bakery on February 13.

“We want to do something that is concrete, and a nationwide protest. We’ve planned several initiatives and will implement them under Youth For Peace, which was formed on Thursday,” said Abhimanyu Singh, a Kolkata-based Pune student, who was close to the Dhars.

On Sunday, peace marches will start at the scheduled time at Kolkata, Mumbai, Ranchi, Jaipur and Chandigarh. Students have reportedly also organised themselves in other locations such as Amravati, Shegaon and Delhi, but have not got police permission.

After each march, the students will distribute pamphlets listing a national agenda in the form of a memorandum in two parts — one for the public, the other for politicians. The first part asks people to believe and participate in the democratic system and not believe in fundamentalism. To politicians, the memorandum appeals that they stay away from vote-bank politics, fundamentalism, corruption and red-tape and improve the police force.

“After distributing the memorandum, we will get a petition signed and write to the prime minister and president, asking them to be a part of our movement. We have to work with the system to eliminate terror,” said Neha Singh, a friend of Anindyee from her school, Bhartiya Vidya Bhavan. She is coordinating the marches across the country.