Members of Smokie. File picture

Oh, set me free, I got to see/The other side of the road/Oh, let me go, I got to know/The other side of the road/The other side of the road...Smokie

Shillong, Nov. 26: If there are rebels for a cause, there must also be music for a cause. That’s the other side of the road.

Perhaps, like the other side of the road, people in the Garo hills are also screaming, almost in a common refrain, not as a melody: “Oh, set me free, I got to see/The other side of the road”.

To see the other side, where there are no distressing Kalashnikovs, but electrifying guitars, no devastating grenades, but healing music, the Police Officers’ Wives Association for Care (POWAC) has resolved to help children of police personnel who have fallen victim to militants in Meghalaya through a scholarship scheme. This will be generated through funds from the December 5 mega event where Smokie will perform live at Polo ground here.

The event also intends to generate resources for the Chief Minister’s Relief Fund in aid of the flood victims.

The December 5 concert is being organised by POWAC in collaboration with the department of arts and culture of the Meghalaya government, in association with t2.

POWAC president Nandita Hanaman told The Telegraph that the scholarship scheme would cover children of police personnel who died fighting militants in 2013 and 2014.

“Depending on the funds generated, we could extend the coverage to children of those personnel who died in 2012 also. POWAC could also increase the number of beneficiaries per family depending on funds generated,” Hanaman said.

Between 2013 and 2014, she said, 11 police personnel had died while taking on militants in the Garo hills region.

On November 5, 2013, five police personnel were killed in an ambush staged by alleged GNLA militants at Bangjakona in South Garo Hills while on July 25, 2014, three cops were killed in an IED explosion at Tebronggre in West Garo Hills.

On October 23, 2014, one police officer was killed during an operation against an unidentified militant group in Jarangpara in West Garo Hills while November 18, 2014, two personnel were killed in an IED explosion triggered by GNLA militants at Rewak in South Garo Hills.

Apart from the police personnel who have laid down their lives, there have also been civilians who became targets of militant outfits. The armed rebels have also been indulging in abducting bank officials, road construction engineers and businessmen for the sole purpose of attaining money. Besides the militancy problem, Meghalaya was confronted with unprecedented floods, which led to massive landslides, in September where 66 lives perished. Out of these, 52 were from the Garo hills region and the remaining from the Khasi-Jaintia Hills.

Hanaman said POWAC came into existence in 1994 when D.N.S. Shrivastava was Meghalaya director-general of police. Its objective is to involve the wives of gazetted police officers in carrying out welfare schemes for the families of police personnel.

She said one of POWAC’s first major initiatives was the opening of the Meghalaya Police Public School at Golf Links, Shillong. Children of police personnel are given priority in admission and pay subsidised fees. The school now has over 700 children.

Moreover, Hanaman said on October 13, POWAC had launched a waste management project called Garbage to Gold at the Police Reserve, Shillong, in collaboration with Bethany Society where biodegradable garbage is collected for conversion to organic compost. It has been far too long that militant outfits have challenged Meghalaya’s stability and progress. The “gun culture”, which first started in the early 1990s, has given impetus to “self-styled” rebels with a cause. While this phenomenon has declined in the Khasi-Jaintia hills, the flow of blood in the Garo hills is yet to recede.

Although the state machinery has been retaliating to neutralise the gun-toting “rebels”, it is not a matter of surmise to forecast the end of the “gun culture” in the Garo hills, which would allow citizens to earn the freedom, in its truest sense, to witness “the other side of the road”.

On December 5, should Smokie sing “Getting so tired of the state I’m in/Need a new life, let it all begin” with Shillong’s music-loving audience, POWAC’s plea to all to participate and make the event a grand success will help bring a noble and worthy cause to fruition.