Abohar, March 28
A team led by Dr Bal Krishan Kurve, Chairman of the Indian Institute for Peace, Disarmament and Environmental Protection, Nagpur, has found that a large number of children in the border areas of Fazilka and other sectors have stopped going to school due to financial constraints and domestic compulsions after three years of landmining operations.

The team, which completed the first phase of its survey yesterday, is expected to submit its report to the UNO next month. This, Dr Kurve, said was part of an international campaign to ban landmines. The team had earlier visited Jaisalmer, Barmer and Sri Ganganagar sectors to study the impact of the landmines laid by the Army when tension mounted on the border.

While the state government claimed that the stage was set to launch the multi-crore “Sarv Shiksha Abhiyan” to check the drop-out rate in the educational institutions besides bringing down the rate of illiteracy, this correspondent, while accompanying the team, found that the ground realities were quite different.

In Behak Khas village a victim of landmines blast, Surjit Kaur, a widow, lost her feet in a landmine explosion while working in her fields. Her small daughters had to take up the responsibility of cooking meals at home when their mother was hospitalised. They had to abandon studies. She got only Rs 5000 as compensation. The authorities blamed her for illegally entering her fields.

Another woman, also named Surjit Kaur, has also suffered the same fate. She has not even got the artificial limb.

Both women could only use thumb impressions. They regret that the authorities had never bothered to educate the residents of the border areas regarding landmine operations and precautions thereof. They owned less than an acre of agriculture land, which could not be cultivated for two consecutive years. The government had paid Rs 11000 as compensation for one crop only, whereas the farmers were deprived of three crops. Those who had been cultivating on a share-basis or tenants had not received even a single penny. The fate of daily-wage earners was more disgusting. They could not get work for the past three years due to the deployment of security forces in the border belt. “How could we send our wards to schools?” some of them asked the survey team.

Kala Singh (35) said he had to spend a lot and borrowed money even when there was provision of free treatment for his spouse, who was a victim of landmine explosion. Having been denied job, he was unable to bear the expenses of studies of his children.

Raj Kaur of Bhambawattu village is wife of an ex-army man. She has six children. She had spent five months in hospital as both her legs had been blown off in an explosion when she was returning home after sunset using a small lane. Since then, her daughters were taking care of the household. The family was not in a position to meet the day-to-day expenses with the pension money received by the ex-serviceman Balbir Singh. Their two sons stopped going to school and opted for small work to make both ends meet.

Darshan Singh of Lamochad Kalan village is also illiterate. He has been pulling a cart to carry bricks from a kiln to nearby villages. As he was returning late in the evening to his home, a landmine exploded depriving him of his right leg. His family had to spend Rs 15,000 at a private hospital in Ferozepore. Later Darshan Singh was shifted to Army Hospital and then to the PGI. The shoe he was given had cracked. The wound had not completely dried even after more than two years. Now he had to take help of his school-going sons to pull the cart but had dark future before his eyes.

Dr Kurve said that 800 persons die due to landmine explosions every month in different parts of the world. In Cambodia, Dr Kurve had found that more than 3 lakh people were unable to return to their land for cultivation. The number of disabled persons in the country was estimated at 36,000.

Mr H.V. Bhatia from Kota said 6.27 lakh cattle had died so far in 23 countries due to landmine explosions. A UN report said that while 40 crore landmines existed in the world, 11 crore were in the manufacturing process. The 1997 Ottawa Treaty had called the nations concerned to ban landmines at the earliest.

Dr Nalini Kurve said legs of 28 per cent persons had to amputated after landmine explosions. Each victim needed 320 units of blood after getting injured due to landmine explosion. A person hit by a bullet hardly required 50 units of blood. The explosion disturbed children psychologically.

‘The Indian Campaign to Ban Landmines’ had organised seminars in different states to bring awareness among the residents of border region and among elite of metropolitan cities. A seminar was hosted here by organisation Natrang recently. The organisation promised help in the rehabilitation of landmine victims by mobilising resources from government agencies, besides NGOs.