Image makeover amid COVID-19: UP village with terror tag makes masks

It seems to be a noble effort by a village, stigmatised as a 'terror hub', to get rid of the tag amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

The residents of Sanjarpur village in Uttar Pradesh's Azamgarh district, about 300 kilometres from Lucknow, which earned notoriety after four youths were allegedly involved in the 2008 Batla House encounter were found to be its resident, have been making masks and distributing them free of cost to the people.

So far, the village residents have stitched around 30,000 masks and distributed them not only among their own people but also among the residents of dozens of nearby villages in the district.

''We are stitching around two thousand masks every day. Around a dozen people, including women, are involved in making them,'' says Tarique Shafique, a resident of the village, who coordinates the entire exercise.

Speaking to DH over phone from Sanjarpur, Shafique said that though they incurred a cost of around Rs seven per mask, it was provided to the people free of cost.

''We, however, pay labour charges to the women involved in stitching the masks,” he said.

The masks were provided in order of priority. ''The older people come first. After them come the women and children, followed by the youngsters,'' Shafique said.

He said that it was a ''collective effort'' from the residents of the village. ''Those who can contribute do so,'' he added.

Congress General Secretary Priyanka Gandhi recently sent a letter to the villagers hailing their work.

Sanjarpur earned the tag of 'terror hub' after four of its residents were found to be involved in the alleged Batla House encounter in 2008 in Delhi.