Sometimes, using your amateur radio contacts and connections - even without picking up a radio - can prove lifesaving. That's what happened recently when hams in India were able to help Bengali authorities in a situation involving youth-on-youth violence.

As the Bengali government struggles with a reported regional rise in violence by youth mobs against other young people, a group of ham radio operators was able to intercede in what local media described as one such case. On July 4th, the website for The Statesman newspaper said a young man was accosted by a group of youths in front of the Indian Institute of Technology in Kharagpur. As the assailants set upon him, accusing him of having stolen a mobile phone, two members of the West Bengal Radio Club were passing by. The two club members, who are shortwave listeners studying for their ham license, sent other club members photographs of the assailants and their victim via their mobile phones. The club secretary, Ambarish Nag Biswas, VU2JFA, said the photos were distributed to radio operators throughout the region using the WhatsApp mobile phone application. The young victim was soon identified by his brother in another town. He said his brother was suffering from psychological difficulties and had disappeared from home a few days earlier.

Police were called to the scene and rescued the young man. According to the news report, police determined that he had stolen nothing and could be returned to his family the next day.

Source ARNewsline - https://www.arnewsline.org/