Over 100 poor schoolchildren aged 3 to 12 suddenly face a threat to their education with the police on Saturday marching in and taking over the Sarva Sewa Sangh, a Gandhian institute in Varanasi that housed and ran the Kasturba Balvadi School.

The Sangh’s 20-odd employees too were left jobless and homeless when the police asked them to immediately vacate the premises, where they had lived and worked for 10 to 30 years.

The government wants to demolish all the Sangh’s 10 buildings on the ground that the institute stands on 14 acres of encroached-on railway land — a charge the Sangh denies while alleging a ploy by the Narendra Modi government to “erase every symbol of Gandhi”.

“The school (a registered one) was meant for rag-pickers and the children of boatmen, to whom we imparted non-formal education. This included basic knowledge of science, the arts, music and life,” Arvind Singh Kushwaha, secretary of the Varanasi unit of the Sangh, headquartered in Sewagram, Maharashtra, told The Telegraph.

Among the employees were subeditors, clerks, supervisors, caretakers, guards and cooks who worked in the Sangh’s offices that included a publication division and a library. “The employees too belonged to poor families; so we had given them quarters here,” Kushwaha said.

“The school management plans to file a case asking the government to take care of the children’s education. The employees will file a separate case arguing they cannot be rendered jobless all of a sudden.”

Meera Chaudhary, who taught at the Kasturba Balvadi School, said: “These 100-odd children’s future is a matter of great concern. We can’t let them go back to their past lives.”

She added: “We had divided them into junior, middle and senior levels according to their age and taught them almost everything that could make them better human beings.”

The children, if they wanted, could later join a board-affiliated school and take board exams.

Arrests, ‘manhunt’

The police on Saturday arrested Ram Dhiraj, 70, head of the Sangh’s Varanasi unit, Chandan Pal, 78, head of the Sangh in Sewagam, and four Sangh members — Ishwar Chand, 70, Rajendra Mishra, 75, Nandlal Master, 40, and Arvind Anjum, 55. They have been remanded in 14 days’ jail custody.

The Varanasi unit has about 50 members, mostly elderly Gandhians who pay a membership fee and are associated with the Sangh’s work. Some of them taught at its school.

“Initially, the police picked up eight Sangh members because they were on a dharna at the institute gate and were interrupting the police,” a Sangh member told this newspaper on the condition of anonymity.

“Later, four were released and two others picked up because the police considered them potential troublemakers. The local intelligence unit is looking for two or three more members of the Sangh to arrest them so that we don’t file court cases regarding the schoolchildren and the employees.”

Those arrested have been charged with abetment of an unspecified offence and unlawful assembly.

“After their medical examination, the police had asked all of them on Saturday night to go home but they replied that the only place they would like to go back to was the Sangh compound, where they lived. Finally, the police sent them to jail,” the Sangh member said.

Saturday’s police action came after the railways pasted demolition notices on all the Sangh’s offices on June 27, days after the local administration declared that the land belonged to the railways.

The Sangh says it has documents to prove that the land was bought from the railways in 1960 through the efforts of Vinoba Bhave, and with the involvement of then President Rajendra Prasad.

Prime Minister Modi, the local MP, had during a Varanasi visit early this month ignored a plea from the Sangh for a meeting to present its case.

Allahabad High Court and the Supreme Court had refused to intervene and directed the Sangh to approach the district court. The district court was to hear the matter on Friday but postponed it to July 28. The government acted before the hearing.

Sushil Kumar, 70, a Gandhian from Bihar who was associated with Jayaprakash Narayan and has been camping in Varanasi to join the Sangh’s protests against the demolition plan, said Varanasi had witnessed a march by citizens on Sunday against the government action.

“Over 100 people marched from Shastri Ghat to Ambedkar’s statue and handed a memorandum to the local administration, asking it to return the property to the Sangh and act against the officials who have been lying to the court, saying there was no valid (land) sale deed,” Kumar told this newspaper.

In May, the government had taken over the Gandhi Vidya Sansthan, a centre founded by Jayaprakash Narayan on the Sangh compound to impart lessons on Gandhi’s philosophy.