Aurangabad, December 21: In Bihar school students have become the silent victims to the crossfire between the state and the Maoists. A government school building that was blown up by the Naxals in 2009. Two years on, the building still hasn’t been repaired, but classes continue to be held in the compound for over 500 students. The children say that it’s frightening to study in the shadow of terror.
“Our school was destroyed. It is very difficult for us to study and play here. We’re afraid the walls will collapse,” a student Priya Kumari said.
Schools have become soft targets for Naxals because the government uses school buildings to station paramilitary forces engaged in anti-Naxal operations.
DGP Bihar Abhayanand said, “By demolishing school buildings where under privileged children study, Naxals are harming the children and their future.”
A Union Home Ministry report says that over 260 schools were blown by Naxals in Bihar, Jharkhand and Chattisgarh, more than 54 of these in Bihar alone. On an average at least one school building is being reduced to rubble by these banned outfits every month.
“The sin was committed years back but the price is being paid year after year that too by school going children who don’t know who blew up their school and why?,” Prabhakar Kumar said.
In this chilling winter the school children in Bihar have no walls around them and roof above their heads to save them from the winter’s fury.
“I appeal to the Naxals to let our schools be. We want to study and are afraid of studying outdoors,” student Durga Kumari said.
As the children wait to for their school buildings to be repaired, these towering albeit demolished structures serve monuments of the Naxal’s might.
——Agencies