Kolkala: Girls of a north Calcutta school located in the middle of a growing sprawl of illegal hawkers live with the fear of stepping out every day into the predatory world of harassers lurking just outside their gate.

Illegal hawkers have invaded the footpaths in front of Seth Soorajmull Jalan Balika Vidyalaya, off Central Avenue, over the past few years of Trinamul rule and, as one schoolgirl puts it, “the men around are scary”.

After this 75-year-old school gives over, it is an everyday struggle for the girls to weave their way out of the footpath jungle without being subjected to harassment in some cringeworthy form or other. “They (hawkers as well as some customers) try to act as if the touch is unintentional, but we know better. If we protest, they shout at us as if we are the ones at fault,” said a Class X student who walks to school and back from her home on College Street.

The plight of these schoolgirls reflects how unsafe Calcutta has become even in daylight. This ugly side to the city is borne out by individual accounts of women who have either spoken to Metro or flooded our inbox with mails describing how the character of their once safe paras has changed and curtailed their freedom.

Outside Seth Soorajmull Jalan Balika Vidyalaya, harassers stalk schoolgirls both when they enter and leave the campus. The 2,000-odd students dare not raise their voices against this assault. They find it safer to step onto Central Avenue, chock-a-block with buses, cars and bikes, rather than stay on the footpath populated by men who “stretch at the sight of a girl”.

“How careful can we be? There are so many people around… How many can we dodge? The only way to avoid them is to walk on Central Avenue, although this is risky,” said another Class X student.

Metro stood outside the school on two days when classes gave over, watching the girls walking out and trying to wriggle past the hawkers crowding the pavement. The swarm outside the school had grown moments before the final bell on both days and most of the girls were spotted evading outstretched arms and ignoring taunts in a way that made it apparent they had grown used to it.

“Most of our girls walk to school and they have to go through this stretch every day,” said Hemant K. Jalan, a trustee of the school with classes from Lower Nursery to XII.

The school had written to Lalbazar in January, seeking eviction of the hawkers outside its gates. It sent a reminder last month.
“Please further note that presence of hawkers is creating problems to the ingress and egress of school-going girls… As 2,200 girls enter and exit the school every day, there is every likelihood of indecent behaviour by hawkers on account of a huge crowd, creating embarrassment to the schoolgirls. This may also result in harassment of the girls. We would request you to kindly take suitable action…” the letter states.

A similar request to local Trinamul Congress MLA Smita Baksi, who is also a member of the school board, has made no difference, The Telegraph reported.

Baksi told Metro: “We have informed the prashasan (administration) about the school’s problem…. An MLA doesn’t have the sujog (opportunity) to evict hawkers… I have seen hawkers here since my birth.”

But why hadn’t she, being a member of the school board, put in a word on behalf of the institute for so long? “The school gave me the letter two months ago and after that we came under the Election Commission’s rules,” Baksi said.

Sources said hawkers who get space in this part of north Calcutta pay protection money whose trail leads to the local Trinamul leadership and civic officials.

Hawkers have long had a presence on this stretch – up to 100 metres north of the school and till Muktaram Babu Street on the opposite end – but the strip between the makeshift stalls set up by hawkers and the shops along the footpath has got narrower and narrower over the past two to three years.

“Never in the 75 years of the school was the situation this bad,” said a Calcuttan associated with the institute.

The girls’ parents haven’t lodged an official complaint apparently because they aren’t sure anyone would spite the hawkers to spare their daughters their daily ordeal. “The girls have humble backgrounds and their parents don’t feel confident enough to lodge a complaint,” a teacher said.

An official of the school said officers at Lalbazar had admitted that “what is happening is wrong”, only to shirk responsibility by saying that the footpath belonged to the civic body. The special additional commissioner of police (headquarters), Supratim Sarkar, said: “We will look into it (the school’s appeal).”

The civic body too washed its hands of the problem. “Not a single hawker can be evicted without the chief minister’s office giving the green signal,” a senior CMC official said on condition of anonymity.

The school, run by the Seth Soorajmull Jalan Trust, came up in 1941. The ground floor of the building houses the Ram Mandir and the first and second floors are occupied by the school, set up for girls from lower and middle-income groups.