Class 5 Madhya Pradesh Girl Sits On Road For Hours After School Van Fails To Pick Her Up

Traffic on a local road in Madhya Pradesh’s Betul district came to a halt on Saturday after a 10-year-old girl staged a quiet protest when her school van did not turn up.

Surabhi Yadav, a Class 5 student, sat down in the middle of the road with her school bag and refused to move. She remained there for nearly three hours, forcing vehicles to stop as commuters watched the scene unfold.

The child, who is enrolled under the Right to Education (RTE) Act, travels about 18 kilometres every day to attend school. A local resident said Surabhi stayed calm throughout. “She kept saying she wanted to go to school,” the resident said.

“She did not shout or cry. She just sat there.”

The school later said it had stopped providing transport to Surabhi because her

family had not paid the van fees for the past two years. According to the management, the transport service is optional and fee-based, and several reminders to the family went unanswered.

However, Surabhi’s mother, Asha Yadav, denied the school’s claims and accused it of blocking her daughter’s education. She said the child had been admitted under the RTE Act but was not allowed to attend classes for almost a year.

“They let her study for only 28 days in November and then stopped again,” she said. “Today they left her on the road. My daughter is under great stress. She cries.”

The protest caused inconvenience to commuters, with traffic building up on the road. After being informed, Chicholi police reached the spot and spoke to the child. Officials from the education department also arrived and assured Surabhi that they would look into the matter and speak to the school authorities.

Following these assurances, the girl finally stood up and left the road after nearly three hours.

Later, the school management claimed that the parents had stopped sending the child to school on their own. They also alleged that their driver was misbehaved with during the incident.