Madhu, a 16-year-old girl, has been struggling to get admission in a Delhi government school for the past several months now.
The school has refused to enrol her in Class IX as she does not have the necessary documents required to complete the formalities. Madhu says it’s impossible for her to arrange for those papers now as she left them in Pakistan from where she and her family, a Hindu minority, fled religious persecution two years ago.
She has now appealed to Chief Minister Arvind Kejriwal for accommodating her in the government co-ed senior secondary school in Sanjay Colony, a place which she now calls home.
Madhu had arrived in Delhi with her mother, siblings, maternal uncle and her cousins two years ago from Punjab in Pakistan. Her father passed away long ago.
She was studying in Class X in Pakistan at the time they decided to move to India. Her life as a student in Pakistan was no normal affair. “In school, she felt unsafe and humiliated. Being a Hindu, she was not allowed to use glass to drink water and would rather use her hands for the purpose. Her teachers maintained distance from her,” said her uncle Jevar who used to run a brick kiln in Pakistan.
“When we went to the government school in Bhatti mines, they told us she was ‘overage’. Then they asked for a transfer certificate, but we had left the same in Pakistan. The school then asked for her Aadhaar card. When we got that made, they asked for some other documents as she is still a Pakistani refugee,” said Jevar.
Madhu approached advocate and social activist Ashok Agarwal with her grievance. His All India Parents Association has now written to the Chief Minister asking him to take a re-look at the norms that come in the way of education of such children.
“It is submitted that education is an important aspect of right to life and she and other such children who had to discontinue their education because of circumstances, must be accommodated in the school education system by suitably modifying/relaxing the rules and regulations.”
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