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Hardoi police lathi-charge students who wanted to meet the DM to complain about their school
A group of 150 students of the social welfare department-run ‘Ashram Paddatti Vidyalaya’ in Shahabad, Hardoi, were lathi-charged by police on Tuesday morning, while
A group of 150 students of the social welfare department-run ‘Ashram Paddatti Vidyalaya’ in Shahabad, Hardoi, were lathi-charged by police on Tuesday morning, while they were on their way to the residence of district magistrate, Pulkit Khare, to complain about the poor conditions at their school and hostel. The students said they were forcibly taken to the Behta Gokul police station, where they were detained for around half-an-hour and beaten up.
According to Class 11 student Shivam, who was a part of the group and got hurt, “around nine students suffered injuries” in the lathi-charge. “Others, including Abhishek, Govind, Salman, Nitesh, Raman, Saroj, Himanshu, Bade Miyan and Pradeep, were also injured in the police assault,” he told HT.
Later, after being released by the police in the afternoon, the students continued to the DM’s residence where they were assured by Khare that an inquiry had been set up to look into their complaints about their school campus. The probe team will, reportedly, submit its findings within three days.
However, till the last report came in, there was no action regarding the use of police force on children – all of whom were aged from 10 to 16 years, according to Shivam.
When contacted, superintendent of police (SP) Hardoi, Ashok Priyadarshi, denied the use of force on children and called them rowdy. “The protest was sponsored. These rowdy elements wanted to disturb the work of minister in-charge Satish Mahana who was in Hardoi,” he said.
Station house officer (SHO) Behta Gokul police station, Rakesh Anand, said the students hit themselves. “They were not lathi-charged. They hit themselves with a brick on the head to create a scene,” he said.
However, the students asserted that the conditions at their school had become “unbearable”. They claimed that the food they got was substandard and they had not been given their books till date.
Shivam alleged that the school administration had stuffed as many as 12 students in one room. “With so many students in a single room and just one fan, it gets very humid and uncomfortable,” he said.
He and some other students alleged that a school teacher, identified as Vinay, and the district social welfare officer Harsh Mawar were involved in financial irregularities, which is why no money was being spent in the upkeep of the school.
Fed up with the mismanagement, they said, they decided to undertake the 40km march to the DM’s residence and tell him about their ordeal. But barely 15 km into their trek, they said, the police intercepted them.
They said additional SP Trigun Bisen and sub-divisional magistrate Hardoi Rakesh Vashishtha, accompanied by heavy police force, stopped them near the Behta Gokul and brought them to the police station. As they remained firm on seeing the DM, the police, allegedly, locked the entrance gate and thrashed the students.
HT attempted to contact the school principal, Sushil Dutt, but he could not be reached for his comments.
Meanwhile, Congress workers in Hardoi blocked a road to protest police action on the children and sought stringent punishment for the guilty cops.
The Akhil Bharatiya Vidyarthi Parishad (ABVP) also warned the district administration to act against the accused district social welfare officer and school teacher within a week. “The people accused of irregularities by the students must be punished,” said ABVP district secretary Sumit Mishra.
Sources said as many as 490 students study at Ashram Paddatti Vidyalaya.
