A Class 6 student, Pavan Nash in Kerala’s Ernakulam district, was devastated at the sight of a disappearing gooseberry tree in front of his house, which he had been fondly nurturing for the past two years. The miscreants who broke off the two feet tall tree had left nothing but a small portion of the trunk.
The 12-year-old was waiting to see a gooseberry grow as he had been taking care of the tree since the past two years. After the tree disappeared, Pavan and his family were surprised to see officers from the Njarakkal police station standing in front of their house with nine new tree saplings. Without the knowledge of his parents, he reached out to the officers The officers came up to the house with the saplings to console him.
Pavan had given a call to ‘Chiri’, a tele counselling initiative for children started by the Kerala government, to aid the mental well-being of kids in the state during the lockdown. When the official of Chiri (meaning Smile) picked up Pavan’s call, he cried his heart out. Following this, the issue was taken up by higher officials of Chiri.
After getting the direction of Inspector General (IG) of Police P Vijayan, Chiri’s nodal officer, officials of the Njarakkal police station brought the tree saplings to give to Pavan.
‘He was very sad, but we didn’t know he had called up the officials,’ said Pavan’s mother as reported by The News Minute.
His elder sister has a teacher who is part of the Students’ Police Cadet and in his WhatsApp profile picture, the teacher wears a police uniform, she says. After Pavan’s tree got disappeared, he took the phone from his sister saying he wanted to play games. But his main intent was to call this teacher thinking that he was a police officer and he could help him.
The teacher gave Pavan the ‘Chiri’ helpline number thinking that they could console him. Later, he rang up on that number and shared what happened with his tree. Pavan is a student of Lobelia School in Nayarambalam. He received the gooseberry plant from the school when he was in Class 4.
The police officers gave Pavan saplings of tamarind and guava, in addition to the gooseberry. Meanwhile, a CCTV firm in Kochi named Smart Guard has come forward and gifted Pavan a CCTV camera for the house, after seeing reports about the incident.
The boy and his family are thankful to the CCTV firm as it will help them keep an eye on his plants and ensure that no such incident is happening again.
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