Villagers living close to the Line of Control (LoC) in TundiTrarPanchayat staged a demonstration against the shortage of staff in Government Primary School Sharma Basti on Wednesday. The residents of the Panchayats assembled in front of the school and raised slogans against the Zonal Education Officer Manjakote and Chief Education Officer Rajouri. The agitating villagers claimed a single teacher is running the school having strength of 50 students. “We live under the shadow of gun along the LoC and future of our children is in dark as school is running on God’s mercy,” said one of the protesters. The villagers said that their deputation called upon CEO Rajouri on July 25 and apprised him their problems. “The CEO Rajouri ordered ZEO Manjakote to depute one more teacher to the school but we haven’t seen anyone in the school till date,” they said. The villagers warned to go on indefinite hunger strike within the school premise if the issue of staff shortage is not addressed in three days. CEO Rajouri, Mohammad Ashraf Rather said that a teacher has been deputed to the school “but he is on leave and now another teacher has been asked to join the school”.
