Awami Vikas Party completes one year, pledges drug-free Maha

Former Assistant Commissioner of Police Shamsher Khan Pathan, who carried out several drug busts and arrested hard core criminals, today joined hands with the youth-force and pledged for a drug-free Maharashtra.
The event assumes significance as it coincides with the International Labour Day and Maharashtra Foundation Day.
At a function held at the Cement Ground, near Antop Hill police station in Wadala area, hundreds of youths joined hands with him and took a vow pledging to eradicate the menace of drugs from Mumbai and other parts of Maharashtra.
Pathan retired in 2012 and later formed the Awami Vikas Party.
Pathan said he had spoken to various NGOs and rehabilitation centres and hospitals, which would be providing concessional treatment for drug addicts.

Youths would also be performing street plays at various places in the city to bring about ill-effects of drugs, he added.

"Youths are the future of India.....We depend on them, but we have to take this menace of drugs out from the society," Pathan, the AVP President, told the gathering.
"We would be working at various levels, right from society, slums, colleges and take it up as a mission," AVP general secretary Salim Alware said.
Pathan also urged Home Minister R R Patil, who is largely credited with closure of dance bars and continuous crackdown on gambling dens and illicit liquor joints, to take a tough stance and order police swoop on drug peddlers and couriers.

Speaking about AVP, Pathan said that though his party was not in power in any way and just one-year-old, they were instrumental in taking up issues of the ignored classes which include appointment of office bearers of Maulana Azad Financial Corporation.