Case Registered against School Teacher for Making Communal Remarks, Slammed by Political Parties

Manas Dasgupta

NEW DELHI, Aug 26: The police have registered a case against the primary class teacher of a private school for making communal comments in the classroom in Muzaffarnagar in Uttar Pradesh which has created a national outrage and strong comments from many including the political parties.

A video gone viral on the social media showed the teacher asking children in the class to take turns to slap a seven-year old Muslim boy for not doing his homework. The incident was in Neha Public School in Khubbapur village and the teacher was identified as Tripta Tyagi. The school was also served a notice by the state education department in connection with the matter.

The video showed the boy in class two standing helpless with tears rolling down his cheeks as his classmates taking turns to slap him. The police said the torture on the boy continued for more than an hour which the teacher later said was a “small matter” and unnecessarily blown out of proportion.

In the disturbing video the teacher, who is also the principal on the school, is heard making communal remarks egging on other students to slap him for not doing his homework.

“I have declared it – all Muslim children should be beaten,” says the principal of Neha Public School to someone not on camera. The incident took place on Thursday.

Loud slaps are heard as the students follow their teacher’s instruction. “Why don’t you hit harder? Whose turn is it?” she says in the wrenching video. The boy was forced to stand for hours, humiliated and beaten, his father told the police.

“My son is seven. The teacher had my child beaten up repeatedly by students. My nephew made the video, he had gone to school for some work… My seven-year-old was tortured for an hour or two. He is scared. This is not a Hindu-Muslim issue. We want the law to take its own course,” said the boy’s father. The child is in shock, he said.

The family didn’t report the crime earlier. When the video went viral, the police registered a case. “We have done a full investigation. On the complaint of the child’s father, we have registered a case against the accused teacher, departmental action is also being taken against the teacher. Counselling of the child and his family is also being done,” said Arvind Mallappa, District Magistrate, Muzaffarnagar.

A senior police officer claimed after a probe, they had established that the teacher had said, “the mothers of those Muslim children who do not pay attention to the studies of their wards, their academics get totally destroyed.”

Basic Shiksha Adhikari of Muzaffarnagar Shubham Shukla said a show cause notice has been served to the school management through the secretary of the management committee Ravinder tyagi. It has been asked to furnish its response by August 28 as to why the government recognition of the school not be cancelled. A criminal case would be registered against the authorities of the school, where the incident took place, the BSA said, adding that a team has been sent there.

The accused teacher sought to defend her egregious act and also claimed the video was edited. “We live in Hindu-Muslim harmony. Many students in our school are Muslims. That child did not bring his homework that day, I said in the video that Muhammedan mothers should not take their children to their maternal uncle’s house as exams are approaching. But they made this video,” Tripta Tyagi claimed.

Denying any communal angle in the incident, she said, “There was pressure from the child’s parents to be strict with him. I am handicapped, so I made some students slap him up so that he would start doing his homework,” she said, calling it a “minor issue.”
“This wasn’t my intention. They all are like my kids and I am accepting my mistake, but this was unnecessarily turned into a big issue. I want to tell politicians that this was a small matter. Leaders like Rahul Gandhi have tweeted, but it was not such a big thing to tweet about. How will teachers teach if daily issues like these are made viral?” she said.

The incident provoked a political furore with the Congress targeting Uttar Pradesh’s ruling BJP. UP’s Deputy Chief Minister Brijesh Pathak said: “We have taken cognizance and full action will be taken.”

She alleged the video was edited to give the whole episode a communal angle. “The child’s cousin was sitting in the class. The video was recorded by him which was later distorted,” she said, referring to offensive words she was heard using against a community in the video.

The boy’s father had said on Friday that he would not press charges against the school, but has decided not to send his child to this school anymore. The video has triggered a massive outrage on social media. Politicians across the party lines also condemned the incident as a hate crime.

“Sowing the poison of discrimination in the minds of innocent children, turning a holy place like a school into a market place of hatred – there is nothing worse a teacher can do for the country,” Rahul Gandhi said on microblogging site X. Samajwadi Party Chief Akhilesh Yadav too demanded the teacher be sacked immediately, and called her a “blot on society.”

“The feeling of hatred towards a child in the temple of knowledge has made the whole country hang its head in shame,” said BJP MP Varun Gandhi. Lok Sabha MP and AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi termed the incident “a product of the last 9 years” and demanded strict action against the teacher.

National Commission for Protection of Child Rights Chairperson, Priyank Kanoongo, urged people not to reveal the identity of the boy by sharing the video.

Police booked Ms Tyagi at the complaint of the boy’s family, under IPC sections 323 and 504 — both non-cognizable offences. Such offences are bailable and do not lead to immediate arrest, and require a warrant. Taking cognisance of the incident, Circle Officer Ravishankar said “The viral video was examined, and prima facie, it seems the child was beaten up for not completing his school work. Some objectionable comments can also be heard in the video. We are looking into the matter and further action will be taken.”

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