Barrackpore: A bulldozer requisitioned by the army on Tuesday demolished the main entrance to a school in Barrackpore, a portion of its boundary wall and an adjoining waiting room for students, triggering a protest by students writing their ICSE and ISC examinations.
For around 45 minutes starting 3.45pm, the bulldozer hammered away at the gate and wall of Modern English Academy, about 25km from the heart of Calcutta, until the dean of the school yanked off the key to silence the engine.
The army had pasted a notice signed by the chief executive officer (CEO) of the Barrackpore Cantonment Board on the school gate around 2pm, stating that a portion of the gate and the adjoining tin shed used as a waiting room were "illegal", a school official said.
The bulldozer arrived an hour and 45 minutes after that and started the demolition, allegedly without warning. Within minutes, nearly 1,200 students, parents and residents of the area assembled there and blocked the road in front of the 20-year-old school to protest the demolition.
The blockade was lifted after Barrackpore police registered an FIR based on a complaint by the school against the CEO of the cantonment board and others. The police have started a case under sections 448 (trespass), 447 (punishment for criminal offence), 427 (mischief), 506 (criminal intimidation) and 34 (common intent) against the accused.
The CEO of the cantonment board, K. Anand, did not take calls from Metro.
At least 160 students are to write their ICSE Hindi paper at the school on Wednesday. "How could anyone carry out demolition of this scale in a school when board exams are going on?" said Subir Ghosh, the father of an examinee.
An army officer said the land belonged to the armed forces and that an "illegal structure" had been demolished. The school contested the claim.
"The Barrackpore Park Road Christian Education Society that runs the school has been the owner of the land since 1998," dean Amrita Isaac Roy said.
There are nearly 27 private schools in the Barrackpore cantonment area. At the time of their inception, the army had allowed these schools to operate as a social service initiative. Over the past few years, these institutes have been asked to relocate on grounds of cantonment property not being meant for commercial use, a source said.
