Schools reopen, Amarinder demands villagers return to homes

Punjab Congress President Amarinder Singh today asked Chief Minister Prakash Singh Badal why the residents of the border areas could not stay back in their homes when schools were being reopened there.

"You are clearly losing it," the Amritsar MP told Badal, asking, "What is the point in opening the schools when you are forcing people to evacuate?"

Amarinder said the state government's decision to open the schools in the border areas clearly vindicated the Congress stand that the Akali-BJP government was "just whipping up war-hysteria in the border areas for its political ends."

Questioning the logic behind opening the schools when the residents had already been "forcibly evacuated", the former Chief Minister asked, "Who will go to the schools when there is nobody staying in those areas?"
 

He said "neither schools should have been closed nor evacuations carried out in the first instance."

"Now that the schools have been opened, the government should facilitate the return of the residents also on priority basis," he demanded in a statement here.

Notably, Punjab government had decided to open all schools in border areas from today.

Education Minister Daljit Singh Cheema had yesterday said that all those schools which were situated within the border area of 10 km and had been closed due to security reason would open from today.

Notably, Punjab shares 553-km border with Pakistan and there are six districts in the State which lie close to the international border.

People in nearly 1,000 villages which fall within 10 km radius of international border were asked to be evacuated following the advisory of Central government in view of apprehension of retaliation from Pakistani side after Indian Army carried out surgical strikes across the Line of Control (LoC) recently.

A number of villagers in some districts had refused to leave their homes on the grounds that they need to tend to their crops and cattle and also look after their properties.