Daltonganj: A young Muslim woman Raziya Neyazi is the flag bearer of the vaccination campaign for women from the same community in Daltonganj.

"I took my first jab. Then I decided to ask my women folks to take it," she said.

"It was no easy thing. The women of my community were hesitant. They said they had heard many bad things about the vaccine and so they won't take the jab,"she said.

She said, "I then thought of one thing. It is Eemaan. I knew people of my community will soon understand this word Eemaan."

Raziya Neyazi said she began asking women and girls of her community as to how much they love their Eemaan and they said more than their life and immediately she asked them to take the jab and they found it difficult to say no to it.

She said so far she had been able to get 170 people of both the communities vaccinated. She said her campaign for the vaccination will be more intense now.

She asks women and girls of her community to step out and motivate people for the vaccination.

Raziya Neyazi is associated with the JMM and has great admiration for the party workers like Rakesh Paswan and others who stood by her in the vaccine campaign.

Sources said the inspiring force behind Raziya is the sadar SDO Rajesh Kumar Shah who went deep into the Muslim ghettos and brought out people of the community in the queue for the vaccination.

Civil surgeon in-charge Dr Anil Kumar said, “We appreciate such efforts by individuals for the vaccination as this will alone help stem the surge of the coronavirus infections."

(Our Correspondent)

Nirsa residents displaced due to heavy rainfall

A view of the flood residential Kumardubi area in Dhanbad on Friday. Gautam Dey

Dhanbad: Over 215 mm of rainfall in Nirsa area of Dhanbad since the last two days led to inundation due to which 80 houses were submerged in Kumardubi and Chirkunda compelling people to take shelter in the schools and community centres.

The inundation in different areas has been caused due to overflow in Jhiliya rivulet which is a seasonal rivulet and due to muddy silt and some concrete structures blocking its movement at several places.

Local social organisations with the help of former Nirsa MLA Arup Chatterjee and present MLA Aparna Sengupta have arranged food and other essentials for the people at the temporary shelters.

Block Development officer of Kaliasole, Lalit Prasad and Circle officer supervised the clearing of the blockade in the river bed on Friday and Saturday.

Talking to The Telegraph Online today, former Nirsa MLA, Arup Charttejee, said, “Though no loss of life took place in the flooding but property damage to around 80 houses which were submerged took place as people have to move away to safer places carrying only the essentials in a hurry to save life, leaving behind large chunk of their belonging at their respective houses.”

“Unplanned housing also led to the flooding as several houses developed in the bed of river obstructing its normal course of flow,” said Chatterjee and also charged the local administration of reacting late to the situation.

Munna Yadav, a local resident of Kumardubi area who took shelter in a government school of Kumardubi said, “We kept waiting yesterday for the water level to recede and ultimately had to rush to the school as due to continuous rain water entered our house forcing us to leave the house in a hurry to save our lives.”

(Praduman Choubey)