Pulwama village students risk lives to reach school

Pulwama, Dec 1: Every day, eight-year-old Muhammad Usman crosses a stream to reach his school located in Bunkhan Bamnoo, an outlying village in south Kashmir’s Pulwama district.

The calm waters of the Bidnay stream are deceptively unpredictable as they could at any time turn into a ferocious torrent and wreak havoc.

“A few years ago, the stream devoured a young boy when the stream suddenly surged with an alarming speed,” the residents said.

In the absence of a bridge, crossing the treacherous stream with glacial waters has become a daily routine for Usman and many other children from Ringwarada village in Kellar block, Shopian district. The stream serves as a natural boundary between Pulwama and Shopian districts.

“Sometimes my father carries me on his back to help me cross the stream,” said Usman, the 2nd standard student.

The residents have built a temporary log bridge over the stream, which often gets damaged by the fast water currents.

Javed Ahmad Tas, his father, said that the absence of the bridge had stymied the education of their children.

“It is fair-weather schooling. A rainfall for a few minutes swells the stream, making it impossible for the school children to cross,” he said.

According to the residents, the government, two decades ago, planned to build a bridge over the stream but abandoned it eventually.

“We are clueless why. Now, we are unsure if they had any plans to construct the bridge at all,” they said.

Most residents of the village come from an unassuming background and it is not possible for them to send their children to private schools in their area to avoid crossing the treacherous stream.

On Saturday, People’s Democratic Party (PDP) leader and MLA Pulwama Waheed-ur-Rehman Parra appealed to the district administration to end the ordeal of the students.

“It’s freezing in Kashmir and children in Bunpora Bamno, Lasidaban, block Achgoza, Pulwama, are still waiting for a bridge to be constructed so that they can safely reach school. When will their struggle end?” Parra posted on the microblogging site X.

Parra sought the intervention of Deputy Commissioner (DC) Pulwama and Minister for Rural Development and Agriculture to mitigate the suffering of the students and residents.