“It is not a good morning; not for our school, not for Poonch,” begins Fr. Shijo Kanjirathingal, principal of Christ School, Poonch, as he addresses the thinly attended morning assembly — the first since the school reopened on Monday following last week’s shelling by Pakistan that left at least 13 civilians dead and 60 injured in Poonch.
Three students of the school are among the dead: Urwa Fatima and her twin Zain Ali of Class 5, and Vihaan Bhargav of Class 8. “This ground belongs to them and they were supposed to be standing here,” the principal continues.
Heads bowed, tears streaming down some faces, the assembly disperses after a silent prayer.
Set up in 1990, the school has 1,200 students from pre-school to Class 12. Today, barely 300 have turned up. All around the campus are scars from the shelling — shattered glass panes and a eucalyptus tree that took a hit as it shielded the school’s kindergarten wing from an artillery shell.
When the shelling started early May 7, the school suspended all classes, but its basement served as a bunker for families in the neighbourhood.
At the Christ School, Degwar, situated 3 km away from the Line of Control in Poonch district (Express/Aiswarya Raj)
“We have another branch — Christ School, Degwar — that’s just 3 km away from the Line of Control. We thought that school was especially vulnerable and were worried for them, but instead, to our shock, we were hit. Poonch town has never been shelled like this before,” says Fr Kanjirathingal.
In one of the classrooms in the junior wing, Amrit Kaur, who has taught in the school for 24 years, says most children haven’t turned up, so they have had to combine children from two sections. “They are too young to understand all that’s happening, but we have asked them to come forward if they want to talk. I told them they need to be brave because they are children on the frontlines,” says Kaur. Behind her, the door stood partially shredded — the effect of a splinter.
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In the school’s senior wing, Ranjeet Kaur, class teacher of 8A, sobs softly. On May 7, her student Vihaan Bhargav was leaving Poonch for Jammu with his family when shrapnel hit them. Bhargav was sitting between his parents, in the front seat of their car. His cousin, Rajvansh Singh, who studies in Class 7 at Christ School, Degwar, and was travelling in the same car, was critically injured.
“Vihaan came to our school just last month. I had moved him to the first bench after his parents asked me to pay him more attention… I just did not want to come to school today. You see a child every day, and suddenly he is no more. I asked my students to sit in another classroom; I could not bear to enter the room without Vihaan in it,” she says.
The schools in all blocks of the district reopened on Monday following last week’s shelling which killed 13 and injured 60 in Poonch (Express/Aiswarya Raj)
When the shelling started, several families, like Vihaan’s, left Poonch for their villages and other safer places in Jammu. Urwa and Zain, too, were leaving for Mandi when the shells hit them.
Urwa’s class teacher, Gulneet Kaur, says, “Urwa’s best friend and neighbour is in school today. When her father dropped her off, he insisted that she must not be left alone, so we combined two sections and moved the students to a different room.”
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Monika Kapoor, who teaches science to primary students, says her son, who studies in the kindergarten section in the same school, has been reacting anxiously to loud sounds. “When we came back from Jammu, he asked me if there would be more shelling. ‘Mama, ab patakha nahi jalega na? Mujhe dar lagta hai ab (Will there be firecrackers? I am scared),’ he keeps saying,” she says.
Gurmanpreet Singh, former head boy of the school and a Class 12 student, says his uncle died in the shelling. “I have heard my grandfather recounting stories of Partition, my father talking about the wars of 1965, 1971, and 1999, and later, militancy in the region. They thought it had stopped with them, but this does not seem to end,” he says.
Marks of last week’s shelling that also hit Christ School, Poonch (Express/Aiswarya Raj)
Around 6 km away, at the school’s Degwar campus, principal Fr Liju says the school is planning to engage a counsellor for the students. “Till 2019, there would be ceasefire violations on the border, and we would send the students back home. However, since then, there has been a sense of calm…This morning, I inspected the campus and asked the staff to look out for unexploded shells,” he says.
On Monday, the school decided against convening the morning assembly. “Only 400 students have come today. We did not want to pressure anyone,” he says. The CBSE school, with 1,800 students, was set up in 2014.
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On the verandah of the school, Class 7 student Puneet Pal Singh is in a conversation with his teachers, who ask him if he has heard from his best friend Rajvansh Singh who was injured when a shell landed on his home on May 7. Puneet and Rajvansh, friends since their kindergarten days, would play cricket every chance they got, say the teachers.
“I called Puneet’s mum on May 7, but she didn’t answer. I kept trying… Then, she picked up and told me he is in a hospital in Amritsar. Three days ago, we spoke again, and she said the doctors were considering an amputation. I have been praying ever since,” Puneet says.