Amritsar shows resolve to lend a helping hand

A sea of humanity and blood donors, including many tourists, descended at hospitals in the tragedy-hit holy city of Amritsar donating blood units much more than what doctors needed.

All day long, people pitched in with free rations and other essentials, offering free langar (community kitchen) at many places. At the accident site along the railway tracks and hospitals where the deceased and injured were being brought, many from the civil society set up kiosk to offer tea and snacks at no cost to tragedy-hit family members and their relatives.

Dr Neeraj Sharma of the blood bank at the government medical college said hundreds of people poured in volunteering to donate blood after they learnt about the accident. Nearly 600 people turned up to donate blood, including many tourists who had come to pay obeisance at the revered Golden Temple.

Doctors sad they needed just about 220 units of blood, but a sea of donors would insist on donating blood in wake of the human tragedy.

The Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC), the apex body managing majority of Sikh shrines in the country, organized langars, free food kitchen, outside the Guru Nanak Dev Hospital. Doctors from other adjoining districts joined in to ease out the crisis.