MALAPPURAM: As the world observed International Day against Drug Abuse and Illicit Trafficking on Thursday, students of a primary school at a remote village in Malappuram district showed way for their elders by taking out a march to a site where a bar hotel is proposed to be built.
Fed up with the usual anti-drug pledges and classes conducted annually, the students of AUP School, Irumbuchola in A.R. Nagar panchayat, took to the streets demanding abandoning of the proposed bar hotel project at Valiyaparamba near Thalappara on the National Highway 17.
The students not only rallied against the hotel but also demanded restoration of a paddy field filled for the purpose. The hotel was being built levelling hills and filling a portion of the paddy field. They also raised slogans against a toddy shop functioning in the area.
Several parents and teachers joined the children as they moved in procession along the highway holding placards and singing songs against drug and alcohol abuse. About 350 students took part in the protest march, which apparently gave a fillip to the not-so-active people’s agitation council.
C.R. Neelakandan, environmental activist, inaugurated the children’s march. They took a pledge against drug abuse.