Even though a large number of police and Central paramilitary forces personnel are deployed in Malkangiri district, students of two schools in Chitrakonda block in the Maoist-infested district couldn’t hoist the tricolour on Independence Day due to Maoist threat.
Sources said the students and teachers of Kurumanur and Papulur assembled at their school premises and took out a rally on the occasion.
However, minutes before hoisting the flags, the school authorities received a warning from a Red rebel outfit asking them to stop further activities or face dire consequences. Scared, the teachers had to cancel the remaining part of the programmes. Bowing before the demand of the ultras, they even had to break the pole, meant for flag hoisting, from the middle, it was learnt. All the teachers as well as the students were sad following the cancelling of the programme, said the Headmasters of both the schools.
They had no option but to take the warning seriously for the safety of the students as the schools in remote and inaccessible regions lack adequate security, the teachers pointed out.
Independence Day was not observed in a few more schools of the cut-off regions, it was learnt. Earlier, the ultras had put up posters at several places including Mahupadar, Kamarpalli and Timurupalli under Mathili block asking people not to celebrate the occasion and observe it as a ‘black day’.
The Governments at the Centre and the State are ‘misleading people’ with their development slogans while tribal's are still poor and underdeveloped, the rebels said in the hand-written posters.