Members of the Kerala Police Association have been bringing fruits and snacks to their colleagues on duty during the lockdown, in the rural parts of Thiruvananthapuram, along with hand sanitisers, masks and drinking water.
Over the days, however, they felt odd that they were having refreshments on one side of the border, while just a small distance away, their counterparts in Tamil Nadu, were also on duty. On Friday, they decided to share their replenishments with the policemen on the other side of the border.
The good gesture even had an official inauguration with the Kerala Police Officers Association state committee member Christi Raj distributing the first box of snacks to the Kaliyakkavilai police sub inspector.
Kerala police on #COVID__19 lockdown duty sharing snacks with their Tamil Nadu nadu counterparts across the border. pic.twitter.com/yXpKtY4k5l
— Cris (@cristweets) April 11, 2020
At many parts in the south of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram rural stations share borders with the Tamil Nadu police.
“It was not the country to country border, just the invisible divisions between two states. Kerala’s is the only police association following a democratic system— meaning the members are all elected. Mostly everywhere else, the members are chosen by the government. So we felt that we had to take more responsibility in our actions,” says Jyothish RK, a police officer who shared the news in a Facebook post. He was earlier part of the Kerala Police Association before getting promoted as an officer.
In his post, Jyothish writes that every day, the epidemic teaches you several things and makes you think deeply. “With the thinking and learning from the disease, the borders that remained somewhere inside our minds have also disappeared,” he says.
“We should realise that there is no barrier to humanity at a time there are struggling lives on either side of the closed borders. Let the humanity that breaks the barriers begin from the burning khakis under the scorching sun,” Jyothish’s post ends.