KANPUR, Aug. 12 -- With the tricolour in their hands and muddy roads behind them, a group of schoolchildren from villages in Kurara block marched several kilometres to the Hamirpur collectorate on Tuesday and blocked its main gate, demanding a proper road to their settlements. The children, accompanied by parents and other residents, refused to leave despite repeated appeals from officials. Their protest focused on a roughly 1.5-km stretch that has turned into mud and slush after the rains, cutting off nearly 3,000 residents living in Chandupur and adjoining deras along the Yamuna belt. The affected settlements include Brahma ka Dera, Banvasi ka Dera, Athbhaiyan ka Dera, Bachchi ka Dera, Bhikhua ka Dera, Gusai Baba ka Dera and Gangwa ka Dera. For the children, the muddy stretch has become a daily obstacle to reaching school. For residents, it poses a more serious problem when someone falls ill and needs to be taken to hospital. The protest was not the first. On July 3, residents and schoolchildren had demonstrated at the collectorate over the same road. Officials later cleared waterlogging and dumped earth on the stretch as a temporary measure. But the repair did not last, and the road has again become waterlogged and difficult to cross. The problem worsened after the forest department closed an alternative route through the city forest that residents had been using during the rains. As the protesters headed towards the collectorate on Tuesday morning, SDM Sadar Abhishek Kumar and CO Yashpal Singh, along with police personnel, tried to stop them. The children continued their march and reached the collectorate, where they blocked the main gate. Officials later tried to persuade them to end the protest, but the children refused to budge, keeping officials and employees inside the collectorate from leaving. Residents said the problem is not limited to the monsoon. The settlements have long relied on an unpaved road, leaving schoolchildren and residents facing repeated disruption whenever the rains arrive....