As hundreds of armed goons rampaged outside a girls’ school in Dhulian on April 11, some 300 Hindu and Muslim students prayed together in their bolted classrooms for a safe return home.
“I can’t forget those faces — men brandishing sharp weapons and gesturing their intent to kill us for peeking through the windows,” a 15-year-old Class IX student of Dhulian Banichand Agarwala Balika Vidyalaya said, recalling the eight hours of terror that stretched till midnight.
“We were praying together, seeking divine assistance to reach home safely.”
Many of the students, both Hindu and Muslim, had come from faraway villages. The girl who described the horror travels 15km each way between her home in a Farakka village and the school, popular locally for the quality of the education it offers.
The Telegraph spoke to both Hindu and Muslim students who had been trapped inside the school as a massive protest against the newly enacted Waqf Amendment Act spiralled into communal violence outside. Their identities are being withheld to
protect them.
All the 300 girls — students of Classes IX and X — had come to write their physical science paper as part of their class exams. Through their classroom windows, they saw armed mobs clashing, vandalising homes, and throwing bricks at each other.
Three people have been reported dead from the April 11 violence, with at least 150 houses torched and over 100 shops and other business establishments looted
and vandalised.
Kakali Ghosh, headmistress of the school, which has 2,600 students and 27 teachers in all, said it had become an enormous challenge for the teachers to keep the girls safe during the crisis, the worst she had witnessed in her 35-year teaching career.
“All the 300 girls were adolescents, and that was our primary concern,” Ghosh said.
“They (the rioters) didn’t enter the school but it wouldn’t have been impossible for them to scale the walls. We had only one male staff member, a non-teaching employee. We were helpless.”
Ghosh said she had repeatedly called the local police and block development officers but no help arrived until 10.30pm, which is when the police finally turned up to rescue the girls and escort them home. The last batch of girls left around 12.30am.
The school has now been turned into a BSF camp. Classes and exams remain suspended.
Sushanta Chowdhury, a resident of the Thakurpara area in Dhulian where the school is located, said: “Had such forces been present on Friday, the girls wouldn’t have been trapped until midnight.”
Ghosh said: “We understand that the situation was so grave that the police couldn’t come sooner. But eventually, they helped the students return safely to their homes.”
The headmistress added that her phone battery had nearly died from the continual calls from guardians and her efforts to contact the administration and the police.
A source said the police arranged for a few buses to transport the students to their homes in Dhulian town and various villages.
“The eight hours we spent inside the school felt like a nightmare. Many students were crying in fear. We thought we would never return home,” a Class X girl said.
She said that she and a few others had tried to comfort the rest.
Food and drinking water for the girls presented another problem. The school authorities managed to find a few packets of biscuits, although it wasn’t enough.
“Trust me, we didn’t feel hungry despite not having eaten for 12 hours — we were only thinking about how to escape from a place where people were screaming and fires were blazing,” a Class IX girl said.
She said she had never known what a riot was but now understood how terrifying it can be.
At least two girls said they were still traumatised and unsure whether they would be able to return to school once it reopened.
“Whenever I close my eyes, I hear the sounds of violence, the chaos, and can see the horrific faces of men brandishing swords and long knives,” a student said.
The teachers said that most of the girls were scarred and would need time to recover.
“Once the school reopens, we will start counselling our daughters. It’s our duty. We shall also ask the guardians to support them through this trauma,” headmistress Ghosh said.
The school has a hostel — Kasturba Gandhi Girls’ Hostel — with 100 boarders from Classes V to VIII.
Ghosh said she was deeply worried about these children, too, as the hostel is located outside the school premises.
“These students stayed in the hostel till April 12. They were sent home on April 13,” she said.