By Mumtaz Alam Falahi, TwoCircles.net,
New Delhi: The Delhi State Committee of the CPI (ML) today demanded a CBI enquiry into the Khajuri Khas government school stampede in which five girl students were killed on September 10, alleging that the state government was not bringing out the truth. The organization has also demanded resignation of Delhi education minister Arvinder Singh Lovely.
The Delhi State Committee of the CPI (ML) today held a protest dharna at Khajuri Pushta against the state government’s denial of justice in the Khajuri Khas stampede. “The government is hiding the fact that girls were molested brutally which led to the stampede. That’s why we want CBI probe into the case,” Kavita Krishnan, National Secretary of All India Progressive Women’s Association (AIPWA), told TwoCircles.net.
While refuting that there was an organized attack from boys of a particular community on girls of another community, Kavita said the area has been communally sensitive and there have been incidents wherein youths of a particular community – in majority in the area where school is located – had disturbed students of another community that come from other side of the area. The Yamuna Pushta divides the two localities.
Kavita also highlighted another major issue which forces people of the minority community to think of communal angle in every incident. The Muslim-dominated area of Khajuri Khas is poor in civic amenities. There is no pucca road, no proper water supply and no government medical facilities while all these are available in the Hindu-dominated area of the locality. The school where the stampede took place is also located in the Hindu-dominated area.
While CPI (ML) had informed the administration about today’s protest, police forcibly disrupted the dharna, and, in the face of protests, dismantled the tent and banners and took them away to the police station. The organization has condemned this crackdown on a peaceful dharna, of which police had been informed well on time. CPI (ML) State Secretary Sanjay Sharma said, “The Delhi Government is trying to forcibly silence the voices of protest against the denial of justice to victims of the school stampede.” Demanding a CBI probe into the school stampede at Khajuri Khas, he said, “The Delhi Government is attempting to whitewash the issue of sexual harassment that led to the stampede.”
A fact-finding report into the incident was also released by CPI (ML) today. The report prepared by a team comprising teachers of Jamia Millia Islamia and Delhi University as well as activists of AIPWA, FDI, Building Workers’ Union and CPI (ML) said there was incontrovertible evidence that the schoolgirls had been sexually assaulted.