Amritsar: Young hawker wants to be a police officer to clean Amritsar from criminals

AMRITSAR: "Mai police banana chahand ha tay meri bhen doctor, hun shayad sada suphna sach ho jaye"(I want to join police force and my sister wants to be a doctor, our dream may come true now), this was the first reaction of 13-year-old Manpreet Singh, a class 7th student. The young hawker Manpreet Singh's viral video attracted the attention of chief minister Captain Amarinder Singh after he refused to accept the aid.
Talking to TOI on Saturday, Manpreet said he had been working as hawker selling phulwarian, pappar and chole in streets ever since his father Kuldeep Singh Bhatia lost his job to coronavirus induced lockdown and his efforts to begin a small time vegetable selling profession failed to pick up during lockdown.
He informed that his two sisters Jaspreet Kaur and Amanpreet Kaur, class 10th and 8th students respectively make phulwarian and pappar at home along with his father and he sells them in the streets of Amritsar in two shifts from 8am to 12pm and then 4pm to 8pm. I earn around Rs 200 a day that helps to meet the expenses of the family", he said.
He said he wanted to become a police officer to clean the city of criminals while Jaspreet wanted to help ailing mankind by going into the medical field.
Notably impressed by the self esteem of Manpreet and his refusal to receive money from a stranger, chief minister Amarinder Singh had on Friday announced a grant of Rs 5 lakh for Manpreet .
However, Manpreet said he had not heard anything from the chief minister or deputy commissioner's office about Rs 5 lakh announcement but from media persons.
His father Kulddep Singh said that after the death of his wife he had raised the three children and was trying to meet both ends. He said his vegetable business didn’t pick up since he didn’t have enough money to put into his small venture.
"I am happy that my son refused to expect the money offered to him and today my head is high with pride” he said . He said a few donors had even offered to repair his dilapidated house .
Stating that she wanted to be a doctor, Jaspreet said, "Is choti jihi Umar vich Veeray nay sada sarya da nam roshan kar ditta hai" (My brother has brought pride to all of us in such a young age).