Do Roti campaign enters fourth year

Chaderghat: On completion of three years of his ‘Do Roti Campaign,’ an awareness programme was conducted by Azhar Maqsusi, with the help of volunteers at Chaderghat X Roads. Appealing to people not to offer money to beggars but provide food, he called upon people to carry some extra roti (meal) in their vehicles to college or workplace, keeping in view the destitution of homeless people seen at roadside.

As part of campaign, Maqsusi along with concerned citizens Mohammed Shareef, Kiran Patil, S Q Masood,  Kallem Chaitanya Reddy, Ali Arsh,  Younus Farhaan,  Syed Rehan, Syed Esa, Noor Mohammed, Mohammed Abdul Akram,  Abdul Azeem Khan, Shaheen and others requested the people. Two different signals at Chaderghat became part of Do Roti campaign. While he was campaigning in the city, his supporters in different parts of the country and some of them Gulf, organised similar campaigns.

He is of the opinion that if the homeless are offered money it was possible that they indulge in vices including consumption of alcohol and falling prey to other additions, which are easily available in the market places. The volunteers tried to attract attention of the commuters and pedestrians on roadside during few seconds of time gap before the traffic signals turned green.The man who has been in action for more than seven years for now by feeding homeless and destitute at Dabeerpura area and more than four years at Gandhi General Hospital felt this need from his own experience.

He faced a lot of struggle during his young age after his father passed away, while he was four years old. Azhar sometimes used to sleep hungry along with his family. His altruism started, after he found a disabled woman sobbing and begging outside a Railway station. After finding out that she was hungry, he bought her food and this is how it started and continued as feeding programme below Dabeerpura bridge for years.

Under Dabeerpura Bridge, he started with the money from his own pocket and it continued for around three years. Later some people started helping him out by providing groceries. Later he extended the program and started distributing free food at Gandhi General Hospital four years ago. Currently about three to four hundred people daily eat food at Gandhi Hospital and Dabeerpura area.

Maqsusi has now extended this initiative to other states too. The other states like Bengaluru, Raichur, Tandoor, Jharkhand and Assam people are now getting free food, where there are more than 1000 beneficiaries.