Now Reading: Mahoba police drag schoolchildren protesting bad roads
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Mahoba police drag schoolchildren protesting bad roads
Schoolchildren in Uttar Pradesh's Mahoba district blocked the Jhansi-Mirzapur highway on Wednesday for nearly three hours, protesting the dilapidated condition of a road connecting Rapura Kalan village. The children complained that waterlogging and potholes on the three-kilometre stretch had made it dangerous to travel to school, with e-rickshaws and autos frequently overturning and injuring students. They alleged that overloaded trucks from nearby dal mills and the mills' discharge of dirty water had destroyed the road, and that mill owners threatened anyone who protested.
When police and Tehsildar Abhishek Mishra arrived at the scene, video footage showed officers dragging and using force to remove the children from the highway. Protesting girl students said they were threatened with lathicharge and action against their parents if they did not disperse. The children said repeated complaints to authorities had yielded no action, forcing them to protest.
Indian Opinion Analysis
The protest by schoolchildren in Mahoba exposes a pattern across rural Uttar Pradesh where basic infrastructure failures, especially roads and drainage, push citizens to extreme measures. Similar highway blockades by students and villagers have occurred in Bundelkhand over the past year, often with the same outcome: complaints filed, visits by officials, and no lasting repair. The state's Panchayati Raj and PWD departments share responsibility for village roads, but inter-departmental coordination is weak. What matters next is whether the district administration issues a repair timeline and whether the dal mill operators face action for damaging the road and threatening residents. Without an FIR against the mill owners, the same protest will recur after the next rain.
Source: aajtak.in
This story was synthesised by AI from the source linked above. Methodology and corrections.
