Students jam Peddar Road demanding reopening of school

Demanding reopening of a city school which was shut reportedly for repair works, students and their parents staged a demonstration on Tuesday disrupting vehicular traffic at Babulnath area in south Mumbai.

Over 500 students and their parents gathered near the New Era School in Babulnath and protested on the six-lane Peddar Road during peak hours, causing huge traffic snarls, police said. The parents alleged that the New Era School was in good condition and the management wanted to shift the SSC students elsewhere and start another school offering international curriculum in the present premises after its repairs.

The officials of state education authority also visited the place to pacify the agitators, but they refused to budge. "The Education Secretary has come here and told us that a meeting be held with Chief Minister two days later, but we refused. A meeting is likely to be held with CM later in the day," Sanjeev Gada, a parent of two students studying in the school, told PTI. The school management closed the school, saying that the building needed repairs and that it had to be shifted to another location till the time the original building could be bulldozed and built again. The Supreme Court had earlier this month asked the education authorities to sort out the matter immediately.

Image: Parents of students of New Era School stage a rasta roko at Babulnath in south Mumbai.

Photograph: Sahil Salvi