The Delhi State Committee of the CPI(ML) on September 30 held a protest dharna against the Government’s denial of justice in the Khajuri Khas stampede that took place on September 10. However, the police forcibly disrupted the dharna, and, in the face of protests, dismantled the tent and banners and took them away to the police station. CPI(ML) condemned this crackdown on a peaceful dharna, of which the police had been informed well in time.
CPI(ML) State Secretary Sanjay Sharma said, “The Delhi Government is trying to forcibly silence the voices of protest against the denial of justice to victims of the school stampede.”
Demanding a CBI probe into the school stampede at Khajuri Khas, he said, “The Delhi Government is attempting to whitewash the issue of sexual harassment that led to the stampede. It is the Government’s neglect of poor children’s education at the cost of wasteful extravaganzas like Commonwealth Games that created the stampede situation.”
A fact-finding report was released – prepared by a team comprising teachers of Jamia Millia Islamia and DU as well as activists of AIPWA, FDI, Building Workers’ Union and CPI(ML).
Farah Farooqui, teacher at Jamia Millia Islamia, said the team had found incontrovertible evidence that the schoolgirls had been sexually assaulted. They had even met one girl with severe bite marks on her upper arm. She said that this dastardly crime was deterring girls from returning to school – and it was urgent that a CBI enquiry be ordered into the whole incident so that those guilty of the sexual assault were punished. Also the Government should shoulder the responsibility of caring for girls in urgent need of medical and psychiatric attention, since their families were too poor to do so.
Kavita Krishnan, National Secretary of All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), said the team had found that the Delhi Government was discriminating against girls’ education.
“Only two schools for the girls out of the 38 government schools in the zone offer science as a stream of study for girls at the senior secondary level, two others are co-educational. Notably, neither of the two girls senior secondary schools in Khajuri Khas has the science stream, in fact the boys school in the evening shift has science while the girls school doesn’t,” she said, asking “Is it that the authorities want to keep the girls from poor families deprived of science education?”
She said, “Delhi Education Minister Arvinder Singh Lovely must resign, taking responsibility for the deaths of so many girls at school. The fact is that if in spite of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan funds, the Khajuri school still lacked basics like benches, desks, classrooms and safety norms, Lovely’s promises of ‘Roopantar’ become a joke. If the girls are too scared to complete school, they cannot even avail of the much-touted Ladli scheme, since funds are given only on completion of Std. XII.”
V K S Gautam, State Committee Member of CPI(ML) said that any talk of ‘Right to Education’ was a farce until the poorest child had access to the same quality of education as the richest one – and this was possible only if Sibal and Shiela stopped the deliberate policy of electing government schools in order to pamper private profiteers in education.
Rahimuddin, activist of the Building Workers’ Union, pointed out the rampant neglect of the unauthorised Kacchi Khajuri area from where the bulk of the girls belonged.
He asked, “Streets, drinking water, ration shop, dispensary, high school – Kacchi Khajuri has none of these – except a police station! Is this because Kacchi Khajuri is populated by poor Muslim workers?”
He pointed out that “neither the Ward Councillor (Rambeer from Congress), the MLA (Mohan Singh Bisht of BJP) nor the MP (Jaiprakash Aggarwal of Congress) in the area had responded to the concerns of Kacchi Khajuri residents – be it about justice for their daughters or about the neglect of their colony.”