In Bhuleshwar’s Gulalwadi area of Mumbai, a BMC school has been home to several policemen for the past five years. This arrangement has occurred while students from grades one to seven continued to attend classes on the same premises, raising concerns about the impact on their educational environment.
The school is managed by an NGO and has a total of 47 students across Gujarati and Marathi mediums. A senior police officer confirmed to TOI: “Two rooms in the school were allotted to the SRPF.
When contacted, deputy municipal commissioner Prachi Jambhekar said, “These rooms were given to the police force during the Covid pandemic and we are giving them a notice to clear it. ” Jambekhar shared with TOI an image on Thursday evening showing that the rooms in the school had been cleared. A teacher at the school said, “We asked the cops many times not to roam around in their underwear with so many children around, but they didn’t listen. Doshi said, “I went to the school to survey its condition when one of the NGO workers working in the school told me about the policemen staying inside. Doshi said, “The school is in a horrifying condition.
The SRPF personnel deployed at different places used it as their barracks. The matter first came to light when Chaitali Doshi, an independent educational activist now aligned with the Cockroach Janata Party (CJP), posted on social media about the potential safety hazard of having adult men living around school-going children. Classrooms have also been given out to govt officials conducting SIR work, while a room has been allotted to govt officials conducting a polio eradication drive. On top of it, so much of the building has been given out for non-academic work.”
However, due to construction work on the upper floors, they were shifted to the ground floor, next to the classrooms. When I entered the room, I saw one policeman lying in his underwear, and this was while classes were in session right beside them. The cops were originally accommodated on the third and fourth floors of the school.