The prestigious St Michael's High School had to be closed suddenly around 12noon on Thursday as a precautionary measure before an anti-encroachment drive carried out by the district administration.

Following a recent order issued by Patna High Court, the district administration launched the drive on Thursday to raze around 70 dwellings between the front boundary wall of St. Michael's and the flood-protection wall.

The school was closed as soon as the police and riot-control forces arrived in front of the institution and thousands of children were taken away from the area hurriedly.

The school has been shut down till January 26 in apprehension of protests. The encroachers, on the other hand, claimed they were staying there for decades and even got government funds like Indira Awas Yojana (IAY) for constructing the shanties. The electricity connections to all the dwellings were snapped in the afternoon. The bulldozer and the cranes started the demolition work from 2pm in the presence of around 100 lathi-wielding policemen, water-cannons and fire-tenders.

'The demolition drive has been launched in pursuance of the high court directives. The land between the flood protection wall and the school wall is government land, and these dwellings were constructed by encroaching it. The encroachers were given several intimations about the drive in the past and they were asked to remove their belongings. Road- widening would be done following the demolition of all the structures,' said Amit Kumar, the sub-divisional officer (SDO), Patna Sadar.

The SDO added that prior clearance was taken from the irrigation department to demolish the flood-protection wall in front of the school.

'The flood-protection wall was acting as a major obstacle for us to clear the encroachment. There is very narrow space between the flood-protection wall and the front wall of the school, thus, it was difficult to raze the dwellings without touching the former. It was because of this reason that we had returned empty-handed in similar anti-encroachment drives conducted in 2014,' said a magistrate looking after the Thursday's drive.

Father Peter Arockiasamy, the principal at St. Michael's, was unavailable for comment. As the bulldozers razed the dwellings, the encroachers tried to salvage as much of their belongings as possible. Though the drive was mostly peaceful, those whose houses were razed expressed deep anguish.

'My three generations stayed in the house and today they demolished it without any proper reason. We are living here since Independence and no one ever raised any objection. It is only after Father Peter came to the school that deliberate actions have been taken to remove us,' said septuagenarian Phuljharia.