PANAJI
In support of the student community of Goa, Aam Aadmi Party Goa had launched a phone number to get the feedback of students answering the board exams and their parents regarding the issue of board examinations being conducted while Covid cases continue to surge steeply across the state.
The Youth Wing of Aam Aadmi Party yesterday led agitating students in their demand to have the SSC and HSSC examinations deferred as done by the other States.
This morning students led by Youth Wing leaders of AAP Nikhil Haldankar and Ritesh Shennai visited the Goa Board of Secondary and Higher Secondary Education to present him a memorandum. AAP leader Cecile Rodrigues was also present.
However, the chairman Bhagirath Shetye was not present in the office and when the students called up the designated number for an appointment it was not answered as there was nobody attending to that phone which was in the next room. The students then submitted their memorandum to the office of the Chairman and decided to call on the Chief Minister at his residence.
The students were arrested while going to the chief minister’s residence and taken from Panjim to Pernem police station where they were kept till 3:30 pm without being given water leave alone food.
Ritesh Shennai was agitated over the fact that the Goa Board was asking only two students to enter the chairman’s office due to Covid and sought to know how the board could allow hundreds of students to answer their exams offline in one school premises.
Nikhil Haldankar wondered what will be the fate of a student who contracts the virus while answering his or her exams and how would he or she answer the remaining papers. “The authorities will be held responsible if any student gets the virus."
AAP Goa Convener Rahul Mhambre visited and met the arrested students at Pernem police station and secured their release. The students were finally released at 3:30 pm.
