The residents of Basooni village, located close to the Lineof Control, Sunday demanded the construction of a safety bunker in the localgovernment primary school, in order to safeguard the lives of students.
Gulsaid Khan, Zaheer Khan and Majid Khan among otherresidents said, “GPS Basooni is located in the firing range of Pakistan.Cross-border firing and shelling near the institution is a routine affair.”
They added, “In April 2018, the students enrolled in theschool remained stuck for over four hours in one of the rooms of the schoolafter cross-border shelling started.”
They maintained, “We demand immediate construction of abunker in the school which has over 40 students enrolled in it. The lives ofour children are important as they are the future.”
On being contacted, block development officer, Balakote,said, “The public works department has taken up the construction bunkers inschools.”
An assistant executive engineer of the department lookingafter the area said that pits for the bunker have already been dug and theremaining work will be started soon. He, however, added that repeated incidentsof firing led to delay in the construction.