ISLAMABAD: In an attempt to make educational institutions functional so as to give the impression that normalcy has returned to the Valley, the authorities are forcing teachers to attend schools despite the occupation of school buildings by Indian paramilitary personnel.
The female teachers have complained that the paramilitary troops, who use school buildings as their residential camps, order the teachers to get their names registered with them, Kashmir Media service (KMS) reported.
Many teachers said that they were harassed by the all-men personnel of the forces while registering their names. The staff members of Government Girls Higher Secondary School Kothi Bagh came to the institute on Monday, to attend the staff meeting convened by the Principal Qazi Romana.
However, the teachers including females had to register their names with the paramilitary troops stationed in the school.
“Once we entered the school we were asked by the troops to register our names with them before entering the building,” a female teacher wishing not to be named told mediamen.
“We felt so uncomfortable and insecure as there was no female trooper with whom we could register our names,” she added.
Qazi Romana, the Principal Kothi Bagh Higher Secondary School, admitted that all the staff members had to register their names with the BSF troopers in the school.
Many schools including Kothibagh Model Girls Higher Secondary School (HSS), MP HSS, Shalimar HSS and Government Middle School Gupta Ganga Nishat have been taken over by paramilitary troops since the beginning of the ongoing Intifada in the territory.
Meanwhile, students say they are ready to sacrifice their future for Kashmir’s freedom, despite the fact that puppet administration has got orders issued through respective deputy commissioners to ensure 100 per cent attendance of students. In Bandipora, the puppet Education Minister’s hometown, school students assembled in the main town near the girls’ higher secondary school to protest the authorities’ decision to hold board exams in November this year. It is pertinent to mention here that multiple companies of Indian Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) are occupying various schools in Srinagar and other parts of the Valley for the past more than two weeks.
Watch towers and bunkers have been built by the forces in the schools’ premises. The schools are being used to shelter additional contingents of paramilitary forces brought to Kashmir to quell the current uprising.
CRPF PRO, Rajesh Yadav, in a media interview admitted that 14 companies of the paramilitary force were occupying seven different schools in Srinagar city.—APP
