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Betul: Dhaba is a village located on the southern border of Madhya Pradesh in Betul district, adjacent to Maharashtra. There are no private schools in the village and only one government school, which villagers say is not good enough. Those who can afford to send their children to private schools send them to the nearest one situated 8 kilometres away, while a few others are more than 20 kilometres away.

Abdul Naeem, a resident of the village, unsatisfied with the quality of education in the government school, decided in 2022 to send his children to a private English-medium school in Pratwada, about 10 kilometres inside the Maharashtra border and about 25 kilometres from Dhaba village. 

Naeem runs a hardware shop and meets his children once a week. In 2024, the 40-year-old then decided to invest around Rs 20 lakh and open an English-medium school in Betul itself so that villagers like him wouldn’t have to send their children far away to study.

“It was difficult for me to meet my children every week and take care of them. I thought opening a similar school in my own village would be helpful to many like me and those who could not afford transport and other expenses, villagers would also be able to get good education in the village itself,” he tells The Wire.

Construction of the school building was almost complete when, on January 13, 2026, Betul’s panchayat sachiv Pawan Tiwari arrived with a bulldozer, few policemen and the sub-divisional magistrate of Betul, Ajeet Meravi. A part of the school building was then demolished.

While a sarpanch is the elected head of a gram panchayat, the sachiv is appointed by the administration.

Abdul Naeem’s school before and after the demolition. Photo: By arrangement

In an interview with a local YouTube channel, district collector Narendra Kumar Suryavanshi was heard saying........

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