Kanpur: Cows in school, students head home

KANPUR: Cattle class became cattle in class in a village government school when teachers and students were greeted by a herd of cows as they tried to enter their school Monday morning.
In Bidhnoo’s Guru Ka Purwa village in Kanpur district, around 50 cows had been locked inside the school by farmers late Sunday evening as the animals had been destroying their crop.
Cattle menace is growing and as Ruby Devi, village head of Guru Ka Purwa, said, “These animals give us sleepless nights and are destroying our crops. Many of us have fallen ill in the extremely harsh cold weather simply standing guard over farms. The district administration has not taken any action in the matter.”
The farmers refused to let the cows free and allow school to run in a desperate protest to gain administration’s attention to deal with the stray cattle problem. This was the third incident reported from the region in the past few days. On December 27, cattle had replaced students in classrooms in Ghanshyampur Katra of Sachendi area in the district. The same day, villagers also locked up stray cows in a police outpost in Bharthana area of Etawah.
Devi said, “I tried to convince the farmers but they refused to unlock the school. They said they will continue to lock the animals in government buildings — hospitals and even police stations till authorities find a permanent solution to the menace of stray cattle. The school couldn’t be opened and teachers and students returned home.”
Block education officer (BEO) Sunil Dwivedi said the matter has been brought to the knowledge of senior officials.
“Such action will only hamper studies of farmers’ children, apart from the cattle damaging school property. If farmers do not relent, we’ll seek police help to clear the school of cattle...”, also seeing “handiwork of anti-social elements with vested interests”.
The bizarre protest comes at a time when CM Yogi Adityanath directed officials concerned to make immediate arrangements for proper care of stray cows.