Promoting the ‘Safe drive save life’ campaign further and spreading traffic awareness among the people, the Siliguri Metropolitan Police (SMP) organized a 10-km road race and a four-km walkathon in the town on Tuesday. The road race and walkathon started from a popular shopping mall at Matigara and turned from Venus More in the town to the mall, making it a 10-km race.

SMP commissioner Sunil Kumar Chaudhary said the aim of the event was to promote the ‘Safe drive, save life’ campaign and to create traffic awareness among the people. “We are holding this kind of an event for the first time and will be organising it annually from now on in a better manner. In a short span of time since the event was announced, it witnessed participants from different states. The main focus of the event was to generate awareness on traffic safety,” Mr Chaudhary said.

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Mentioning that accidents claim several lives every year, PWD, Sports and Youth Affairs minister Aroop Biswas said, “It is a great initiative taken by the SMP to make people aware of road safety by sensitizing the concept of safe driving among people.

Road accidents claim more lives than normal deaths, and educating and creating awareness through such events crafted by the SMP is a good deed.” The event was divided for male and female participants. The first prize carried a cash prize of Rs 50,000, the second had Rs 25,000 and the third carried Rs 15,000.

Apart from the cash prizes, certificates and medals were given to top 100 participants. In the women road race category, Jhuma Khatun bagged the first prize, followed by Poonam Singh, while Sikha Mondal grabbed the third position. Similarly, in the men’s category, the first prize was won by Subhankar Ghosh, followed by Prahlad Singh, while nd making it to the third position was Hajung Bhutia.

Meanwhile, in the women walkathon, the first prize was taken by Alpana Chowdhury, while Dipti Paul came second, and Mina Agarwal stood third. Similarly, in the men’s category, Tiken Mandal came first, followed by Dwanika Upadhyay and Parimalch Shil.

The events were open to any participant (male and female) of 16 years and above, while men of 50 years and above and women of 40 years and above participated in the walkathon, it is learnt.