eua_2014_full.pdf?utm_content=buffer4a392&utm_medium=social&utm_source=twitter

EDUCATION UNDER ATTACK 2014on the school verandas because of the damage. 747 Inanother incident, on 14 April 2009, a witness toldHuman Rights Watch that Maoists planted mines inGosain-Pesra Middle School, Bihar, and blew them upremotely, causing half of the two-storey structure tocollapse to the ground. 748Seven incidents targeting Christian schools were alsoreported, primarily by Christian sources, five of themallegedly perpetrated by Hindu militants. 749 Forexample, on 26 January 2009, a group of Hindutvaactivists attacked St Mary’s School at Kadiri in AndhraPradesh, destroying the furniture and injuring severalof the nuns, purportedly because the school had nothoisted the national flag on Republic Day. 750 Otherswere attacked, apparently by Muslim protesters. On 16September 2010, it was reported that one Christianschool in Jammu and Kashmir, the Tangmarg branch ofTyndale Biscoe school, was razed to the ground, 751 andanother, the Roman Catholic Good Shepherd HighSchool at Pulwama, was burned down during protestsover alleged desecrations of the Koran in the UnitedStates. 752Attacks on school students, teachers and othereducation personnelA tally of incidents reported by media and humanrights groups indicates that at least 13 teachers, 753 onecatering staff member 754 and four students 755 werekilled from 2009 to 2012. At least 73 teachers 756 and 11students 757 were injured. Seven teachers wereabducted, five of whom were subsequently founddead, 758 and at least two students were kidnapped. 759Maoists were suspected in a number of attacks onteachers and the killing of at least four students.Motives were not always clear but often the Maoistsalleged that their victims were police informers. Inseveral cases, it appeared that the teachers weretargeted after refusing to cooperate in some way: forexample, by declining to send their students forMaoist training, refusing to pay levies to the People’sCommittee against Police Atrocities (PCPA) orremoving black flags hoisted outside their schools byMaoists on Republic Day. 760 In one illustrativeincident, the head teacher of Indiraboni primaryschool in West Bengal was reportedly gunned down bythree Maoists on motorcycles amid claims that he hadprevented students from taking part in ralliesorganized by Maoists. 761 A number of teachers alsoseemed to have been targeted because of their affiliationswith the Communist Party of India–Marxist(CPI-M). Many teachers refused to work in areasaffected by the Maoist conflict out of fear for theirsafety. 762In at least two incidents, suspected Maoists werereported to have killed individuals at schools in frontof students and teachers. On 14 September 2009, agroup of Maoists shot dead a teacher and CPI-Mmember in Jamda High School in West Bengal afterentering the classroom where he was teaching. 763 On20 March 2009, a Class 9 student, and son of a policeofficer who had been killed the previous year, wasfatally shot and then stabbed by Maoist guerrillas infront of students at his school in Koyalibeda, inChhattisgarh. 764One media outlet said in August 2012 that children inMaoist-affected areas of Jharkhand’s East Singhbhumdistrict were carrying bows and arrows to school,fearing attacks from the insurgents. Local people hadbeen training children to defend themselves becausethe children had to travel two kilometres to schoolthrough thick forests. 765Several abductions and killings of teachers bymilitants from separatist groups were reported inAssam, in most cases after teachers refused to give into demands for money. 766In at least six incidents 767 reported by Christiansources, staff or students at Christian schools weresaid to have been injured or threatened. For example,on 29 May 2009, Hindu militants allegedly attacked aChristian missionary school in Andhra Pradesh,beating several teachers, telling them not to work inthe village and threatening to kill them. 768In Jammu and Kashmir, when schools reopened in theKashmir Valley in late September 2010 after a threemonthclosure following violence and curfews,separatist leader Syed Ali Shah Geelani reportedlycalled on parents not to send their children to schooland appealed to teachers to stay at home as part of apolitical protest against alleged civilian deaths duringsecurity operations. The chief minister of the state,Omar Abdullah, appealed to separatists not to target139