Rajbiraj, July 13:

Establishment of a security base camp on the building of the Lilja Thakur Rastriya Primary School has forced the students to continue their studies on the playground on the school premises.

The Nepal Army has been using the two-room school building at Hanumannagar VDC-9, Saptari, as a base camp from the past two years, just six months after it was constructed. This has caused much difficulty in conducting classes, headmaster of the school Ram Nandan Tiwari said.

Though there is another school building to the east of the new building, classes have to to be run on the playground due to the lack of adequate classrooms, Tiwari said.

The school building was constructed with financial assistance of Rs 1.72 lakh from Denmark.

The school has been fenced with barbed wire.

“There are altogether 1050 students in the school. We need four more classrooms but we are not able to use the two we already have,” he said.

Chairman of School management Committee, Sheikh Enul Haque, said the District Education Office has been requested time and again to take initiatives to remove army from school premises.

Colonel Saroj Pratap Rana of Artillery Battalion, Rajbiraj, under Eastern Division of Nepali Army said army established a base camp in the building only because it was being unused and said the army would vacate it if needed.

Acting Chief District Officer of Saptari, Madhav Pokharel, said he hasn’t received any information about the matter and added that the school building would be vacated.