Plaints against villagers for locking up edu officials

The officials are District Education Officer Pradip Kumar Nag,  District Project Coordinator (DPC) of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Gabakhya Naik and technical consultant of DPC office Bhubanand Hota.

BHAWANIPATNA: The three officials of School and Mass Education department, who were locked up in a room by villagers of Latkabaheli under Kesinga block in Kalahandi district, filed police complaints against 11 villagers on Wednesday.

The officials are District Education Officer Pradip Kumar Nag,  District Project Coordinator (DPC) of Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan Gabakhya Naik and technical consultant of DPC office Bhubanand Hota. They alleged that the villagers had wrongfully confined and abused them while they had gone to the village to check the condition of Latkabaheli Primary School.  

The villagers, on the other hand, filed a complaint against Nag, Naik and Hota alleging that they abused the school committee members, guardians and threatened to physically assault them when they approached the officials to discuss the poor condition of the school.

The building of Latkabaheli primary school, which has 164 students and six teachers, was declared unsafe two years back. Subsequently, the school management committee made an arrangement to run the school from an Indira Awas Yojana house of a villager.

However, a year later, the house owner refused to allow the school to operate from his house and asked the committee to vacate the premises. The matter was brought to the notice of Block Education Officer, Kesinga, who directed that the school be attached with Phatkamal Primary School, 3 km away, till the new building is constructed.

This, however, was not accepted by the school managing committee that asked the  school teachers and headmaster to hold classes on a public road as a mark of protest. They started holding classes on road and some villagers recorded it and uploaded the video on social media sites. The video soon became viral and headmaster of the school,  Haraprasad Sahu, was placed under suspension. This further angered the committee members. The School and Mass Education department officials visited the village on Tuesday  to inquire into the issue and identify site for construction of the new school building. The villagers then confined the three officials in a room for about three hours.Police said complaints from both the sides have been received and investigation is on.

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