Srinagar/Jammu, Sep 27 (IANS) Schools and colleges re-opened in the Kashmir Valley Monday after remaining closed for more than three months, and barring a few incidents of stone pelting at school buses the day passed off peacefully. While most educational staff reported for duty, only a trickle of students turned up, but they were delighted.
‘A few incidents of stone pelting occurred at Galandar in south Kashmir Pulwama district, at Sheikhpora in Badgam and at some places in Srinagar city where miscreants pelted stones at passing school buses,’ said a senior police officer here.
‘Educational institutions functioned normally in the city with near 100 percent staff attendance,’ he added.
‘Students did not turn out in large numbers, but those who attended schools today have now returned home safely,’ he added.
The officer claimed that wild rumours about school buses being attacked by mobs and children getting injured in those incidents were spread by miscreants to deter parents from sending children to schools.
Education department officials said the staff attendance was near 100 percent while an encouraging number of students came out to join classes.
‘The response has been encouraging and we are hopeful attendance at schools will start improving from tomorrow (Tuesday),’ said an official of the education department here.
The educational institutions were reopened even as an indefinite curfew continued in the city in the face of a directive by hardline separatist leader Syed Ali Geelani, asking parents not to send their children to schools.
Security forces were told to allow free passage to buses and other vehicles carrying school children.
Despite the security and transport arrangements made by the authorities, less than 5 percent student attendance was recorded in schools in Srinagar Monday.
Many schools situated in the old city areas of Srinagar recorded zero percent student attendance.
‘I brought my son to the school today because we live hardly 500 metres away from the school,’ said a parent who requested not to be named.
‘This would not be possible for others who have to bring their children to school covering eight-10 km in a tension-ridden city like ours,’ he added.
Most of the students who turned up to attend classes said they felt wonderful.
‘I have come to my school after two months today. It is a joy I cannot put in words, but if the situation does not improve completely, I fear my parents might not risk sending me to the school just because I enjoy coming here.’
‘It has been my first experience to venture out of my home during curfew. Everything wears a deserted look. Hardly anybody on the roads. My father who carried me to the school on his scooter was stopped by police, but after seeing me on the pillion they just smiled and waved me on,’ said Mudasir (name changed to protect identity), student of prestigious private school here.
Officials claimed attendance of children in schools working in rural areas was 80 percent.
However, locals maintain that most schools in rural areas of the valley had been functioning almost normally during the over three-month-long unrest.
‘Today’s attendance both by staff and children at schools in Srinagar has been encouraging, given the fact that the separatists had called for a complete shutdown today and asked people to remain indoors,’ a senior police officer said here.
Syed Ali Geelani in a statement specifically asked parents not to send their children to school Monday as he claimed the Indian government was now trying to use children against the ongoing Quit Kashmir campaign started by his group.
‘They have killed over 108 children and youth and now suddenly they have started showing concern for the education of our children. There is a design behind this move of the government’, Geelani claimed.
Chief Minister Omar Abdullah in Jammu advised the media not to ‘hype’ the event ‘because the lives of children are at stake’.
Talking to newspersons on the sidelines of a government function, Abdullah said: ‘My request to all of you in the media would be that the opening of schools in the valley should not be played up’ as he feared it may bring harm the children’s way.
In New Delhi, union Home Minister P. Chidambaram, welcoming the opening of schools, criticised stone pelters for attacking school buses in some areas.
‘How can any right-thinking person pelt stones at school buses?’ Chidambaram asked.
‘I hope that such mischief will stop immediately. Anyone who has the interest of the children at heart cannot indulge in stone-pelting, nor should anyone support such mischievous attempts to interfere with the functioning of schools and colleges,’ he said.
At least 108 people have been killed in the Kashmir Valley, mostly in firing by the security forces during clashes with stone-throwing protesters over the past three and a half months. The unrest had led to schools being shut in the valley.
