May 20: A headmaster stood in front of his school gate to- day and distributed photocopies of HS mark sheets among students because his office had been turned into a strong room for ballot boxes.

“The strong rooms are being heavily guarded by police and paramilitary forces. So, I thought the students might face problems collecting mark sheets from such a place,” said Sadrul Islam, the headmaster of Bhagabangola High School.

He travelled 25km by bus to Nabab Bahadur Institute in Murshidabad town early this morning to collect the 239 mark sheets for his school.

Sadrul had all the 239 mark sheets copied because distributing the originals from the school gate could have been risky when the district has been going through a violent panchayat poll. There was repolling in several pockets of Murshidabad today.

“I’ll distribute the original mark sheets after the counting is over,” the headmaster said. However, he charged each student 75 paise for the copies.

The teacher-in-charge of MN Academy High School in Lalgola, Pradip Kumar Banerjee, was not so enterprising. “Our school has been requisitioned for vote counting. So, we couldn’t distribute the mark sheets,” he said.

“Students living in towns like Behrampore can get to know their marks from the Internet. But in a rural area like Lalgola, the students have to wait,” Banerjee added.

Bhagabangola Girls’ High School headmistress Alpana Roy Chowdhury, too, could not distribute the mark sheets. “Our school was taken over for a police camp. The police left today but we could not clean up the premises. However, we hung the booklet (which shows whether a student has passed or failed),” she said.

Chirantana Roy of Chuapur Girls’ School in Behrampore saw her results on the Internet. “The situation must be bad for those in the villages,” she said.

The head teachers of around 600 rural schools in Bengal faced the same problem.

In West Midnapore’s Jhargram town, Kumud Kumari Institute was spared the trouble because it had a spare building outside the compound.

At Salboni High School, the hostel building came in handy.

The headmistress of Mission Girls’ School in Midnapore town, however, had requested the administration for permission to use the school building and was allowed a room.