Sheep and Animal Husbandry department runs a training centre for its newly-appointed employees in Srinagar in the middle of a paramilitary camp.Zahid Maqbool reports.
Fayaz Ahmed Wani travels nearly 100 kilometres everyday from Kupwara to attend a course at the Sheep and Animal Husbandry department-run training centre in Srinagar after his appointment in the department. The training is mandatory before he formally joins the department as a stock assistant. And this is a third straight day he is late for his morning session at the centre.
Fayaz has so far failed to find a proper accommodation to continue his technical training without any hassle. A building which was supposed to be his dwelling during the training period is occupied as the training institute in Srinagar’s Nowshera locality is also a paramilitary camp.
“I don’t even get time to find one (accommodation),” he said. “In the morning I reach very late even for classes. In the evening I can’t as it is impossible for me to get a bus back to home.”
Four out of the centre’s six structures – a hostel for the trainees like Fayaz, two animal houses and a family quarter – are occupied by the 158 battalion of Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF). There are 53 students from Kashmir as well as Jammu provinces presently enrolled for the course. Twenty more are expected to come. Officials say its barely possible to provide a proper training with the remaining “free” infrastructure.
Male students complain lack of space. Female students call their campus a “camp” and grumble against the gaze of the armed personnel.
“It is so painful to walk through the barbed wire walls inside a camp. You know most hurting is when I get off from a bus outside the camp and go inside. People continuously gaze at me. They might be thinking different things,” said Shafai Farooq (name changed) who is contemplating to quit her job.
“You know what it means for a girl going inside a camp in Kashmir. Who knows there is a training college inside it?” According to students, they are huddled in a room. They stick to classrooms most of the time. “There is no space where we can sit and chat in our free time. There are no facilities for playing games,” said a group of students outside their classroom. “Our classes are in the middle of the camp. There is hardly any space which is not marked with barbed wire.” When the cry for demilitarization of public and private places gained momentum last year, the college administration also intensified efforts.
“We’ve taken up the matter with district administration as well as police and CRPF. Communication is going on,” said In-charge Principal Dr. Manzoor Ahmed Zargar. But hardly any help in sight, the college officials contacted the CRPF commandant. “We directly wrote to their commandant. He says we don’t have any problem in vacating the land and buildings, provided district administration provides us alternative arrangement,” said Dr. Zargar. The commandant has shot a letter back to administration wide no- tsk-Estt/11-12/88-9, dated August 11, 2011. CRPF’s Public Relations officer, Mohsin Shahidii, said the paramilitary force has “no role in taking up streets or buildings”.
“It is the administration which directs us to take or handover any property. It is the sole authority of the administration to deploy or lift CRPF wherever they require. We have no problem in any land or building, if administration provides us alternative arrangement.”
Superintendent of police Hazratbal, under who the area falls, is optimistic about “solving” the “problem”. “We’re in touch with all parties and we’ll soon get it solved.”
Till then, the fresh recruits will perhaps get “acclimatised” with their “razor-wired” campus and reconcile with it as “normal” and part and parcel of their training.
