As tension simmered 100 metres away, school kids in Bulandshahr given meal early

On December 3, over 150 students at a primary and junior secondary school in Bulandshahr's Chingrawathi village, where a mob of some 400 people violently confronted police that day, were served the mid-day meal early at 11.15am.

Unaware of the tension simmering barely 100 metres away, it was rather unusual for the children who are generally given the meal at 12.30pm on the school premises.

"That day, we had got an order to distribute the meal early and send the children home," Rajpal Singh, who cooks and serves the mid-day meal, told PTI.

The school, which has 107 children in primary classes and 66 in junior secondary, opens at 9am and continues till 3pm.

"After the children were fed the meal, they were quickly sent home," Deshraj Singh, the teacher in-charge of the primary school, said.

"Some children left their meal midway and some had left their school bags behind, which were later torn by monkeys," he said.

Singh, along with two lady teachers and two shiksha mitras, teaches the students from Class 1-5. Uma Rani, along with one more teacher, teaches the students from Class 6-8. Both primary and junior secondary sections operate from the same school campus.

"The crowd was unusually loud, it appeared unprecedented. A message reached us from the Basic Shiksha Adhikari at 11am, saying the situation does not look fine due to the Ijtiba (Muslim congregation), serve meal to the children and leave them early," Singh said.

A huge number of people had gathered in Bulandshahr for the three-day Ijtiba, being held at a distance from site of violence. But the main road, near the school, was packed with vehicles and people heading to the congregation.

"Huge number of people, truck loads of people