No more camping in schools for Chhattisgarh security men

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Raipur, Sep 29: In a bid to boost literacy drives in the restive Bastar region, comprising seven districts, Chhattisgarh government has decided not to allow security personnel to use schools as camps, a top government official said Saturday.

“Educational activities, mainly primary education, has suffered heavily in recent years in poverty-hit Bastar where schools in forested interiors have become a shelter for security forces engaged in the anti-Maoist operation,” said an official who requested anonymity.

The official said the government had decided to free up schools from the occupation of security forces in the tribal areas, which, for decades, have had a low literacy rate.

Maoists had also taken to bombing and demolishing school buildings in parts of Dantewada, Bijapur, Narayanpur, Bastar, Kanker, Kondagaon and Sukma districts, as schools and ashrams (boarding schools run by the tribal department), have turned into camps for the thousands of police and para-military troopers engaged in fighting the guerrillas who have held sway in Bastar since the late 1980s.

IANS