Policemen Vacate Bhuleshwar BMC School After Residing on Campus for Five Years

Several policemen who had been residing inside a Brihanmumbai Municipal Corporation school in Bhuleshwar’s Gulalwadi for five years were issued a notice to vacate, civic officials confirmed. The personnel occupied space on the campus while children from standards one to seven attended classes on the same premises.

Deputy Municipal Commissioner Prachi Jambhekar stated that the school rooms were initially handed over to the police department during the Covid-19 pandemic. Jambhekar confirmed that the civic administration served a notice to clear the premises, sharing an image on Thursday evening showing that the rooms inside the school had been vacated.

A senior police officer confirmed the presence of personnel at the site, explaining that two rooms in the municipal school had been allotted to the State Reserve Police Force. SRPF personnel deployed at various locations across the city used the rooms as their barracks during that period.

The school is managed by an NGO and currently enrolls 47 students across Gujarati and Marathi mediums. Teachers at the institution reported persistent issues regarding the conduct of the personnel living on campus. One teacher stated that staff had repeatedly asked the officers not to roam around in their underwear around the young children, but the personnel did not listen.

The living arrangement came to light after Chaitali Doshi, an independent educational activist aligned with the Cockroach Janata Party, raised concerns on social media regarding the safety hazards of adult men living in close proximity to school-going children. Doshi said she had visited the school to survey its condition when an NGO worker informed her that policemen were residing inside the building.