Pappu Zebra interacts with students. Picture by Ashwinee Pati

Bhubaneswar, Jan. 4: Four, three, two, one, zero and then there was a loud cheer. Pappu the zebra, a life-size traffic mascot, was unveiled today by police commissioner B.K. Sharma at the DAV Public School, Chandrasekharpur as part of the 22nd National Road Safety Week.

Much to the amusement of the hundreds of students present for the Pappu Zebra Road Sense Campaign, the black-and-white striped mascot held a class for them to brush up their knowledge of traffic rules and regulations. Pappu became an instant hit with the crowd even as he went around distributing booklets featuring traffic guidelines to the students.

“We all danced with Pappu. He asked us to follow traffic rules and gave us comic books illustrating the same. I will share the booklet with my father,” said Shubham Nayak, a Class III student.

Popular Oriya film actors Babushan, Anu Chowdhury, Ushashi Mishra, Gungun, Akash DasNayak, Pintu Nanda and sports personalities Dilip Tirkey and Anuradha Biswal were also present at the function. The actors expressed their concern about increasing number of road accidents and stressed on the role of youths in generating awareness about road safety.

“The moment you step out of home, you are in constant terror of being hit by a vehicle,” said Satwik Patnaik, a Class X student. “These campaigns are very important for young students as they are the ones that flout traffic rules the most,” he added.

Another student, Gargi Tripathy, of Class XI, said: “It is unfortunate that despite being aware of traffic rules, we don’t generally follow them. Helmets and seat belts, although necessary, are considered impositions. Moreover, people don’t take the awareness campaigns very seriously. We youngsters need to be more watchful and take necessary steps to make such campaigns successful.”

This was the first time the concept of a mascot has been used by the police to sensitise the public.

Pappu would travel to other districts to spread the message of road safety and traffic rules. Kerala police are also using a zebra mascot for observing the road safety week in their state.

Other speakers who addressed the students on this occasion were IPS Amitendra Nath Sinha, DCP Himanshu Lal, CEO, OrgPeople Kerala, Vinay Kumar Raja and secretary of Forum for Prevention of Road Accidents, Bikash Mohapatra.