Daily traffic snarls leading to total chaos outside Saint Mary’s Presentation Convent School on the BC Road continue to take a toll on commuters and traffic policemen alike, courtesy Tiger Division of the Army, which allegedly has not been allowing the school management to use the school land for the purpose of dropping and picking up schoolchildren.
“The Army doesn’t allow parents of our children and drivers of privately hired school vehicles to use the strip with our compound wall for the purpose of dropping and then picking up the children during morning and afternoon hours,” said a schoolteacher.
After a hard toil, the school management somehow convinced the authorities of Tiger Division to at least allow vehicles ferrying students of (Manjushree) kindergarten to enter via the Tiger Division gate, she said.
“Thank God, they agreed. Otherwise, these tender buds, too, had to be dropped and picked up by their parents and drivers on the BC Road that remains full of traffic, she added.
A former principal of the school had told this correspondent that the Army cited security concerns while disallowing the school management, parents and drivers to use the strip by school’s compound wall. “I don’t understand how the future of the nation could be a security threat to the Army,” she had said.
“The land belongs to the school and if the Army feels any security threat in otherwise peaceful Jammu city then they can raise the main gate where our compound wall ends and their area starts, but they do not listen to our pleas,” she said.
The Army has declared the strip out of bounds for parents and school van drivers.
“While the unrelenting Army does not allow us to use the strip, we get all sorts of nasty calls from the Traffic Police Department,” said another teacher.
Avinash Gupta, a parent, who daily drops and picks up his child, said, “In the absence of any parking space on the BC Road, parents and privately hired school vehicles’ drivers are compelled to park their vehicles on the road that creates a traffic mess. But then there is no parking space.”
The driver of a private school cab said the armed Army men on the entrance gate only allowed vehicles of kindergarten to enter during morning and afternoon to drop and pick up small children. “For students of primary and other higher classes, we have no option than to park vehicles on the BC Road,” he said. “Morning is manageable but it’s the afternoon that chokes the road completely,” he added.
While traffic becomes a nightmare during morning drop-off and afternoon pick-up, it has been learnt that the school management has also moved the court of law.
Traffic policemen with siren-fitted police vehicles could be seen screaming behind parked vehicles.
“We also know that parents and these drivers have no option, but we also have to perform our duty,” said a traffic policeman while loudly repeating numbers of vehicles to find out their owners so that they quickly leave the place and the traffic could be restored.
Around 40,000 students are ferried by around 850 privately run buses, cabs and auto-rickshaws in the city.
However, a Defence official had his reasons. “While the matter is in the court of law, I think some part of the land had been given to the school by the Army as it was a Defence land. Secondly, if vehicles are allowed inside the gate and a suicide bomber gets inside then who will be responsible?” he said.
Former Chief Minister Omar Abdullah and his successor Mufti Mohammed Sayeed often talked about revocation of AFSPA from peaceful districts and reducing footprints of security forces, especially from urban areas.
The Jammu city witnessed last terror attack on its outskirts in Chinore on August 28, 2008.
