Manas Dasgupta
NEW DELHI, Aug 28: Police in Uttar Pradesh have filed a FIR against fact-checker and Alt News co-founder Mohd Zubair for social media posts allegedly revealing the identity of the Muslim boy slapped repeatedly by his classmates even as the accused teacher released a video on the social media seeking pardon with folded hands for her unintentional act.
Following a police complaint by the boy’s family, the accused teacher Tripta Tyagi faces a case of voluntarily causing hurt and intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace. Both offences are bailable and do not lead to immediate arrest. The school in Muzaffarnagar in UP, has been shut for now and its students would be shifted to other schools nearby, state education department authorities have said.
The classmates of the Muslim boy were seen taking turns to slap the boy repeatedly on the orders of school teacher Tyagi who also appeared to make communal remarks.
On Friday the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights had warned against revealing identities- particularly by sharing the video of the attack on the Class 2 student. NCPCR Chairperson Priyank Kanoongo had urged people to “not become part of the crime by revealing identity of the children.”
The video of the boy being slapped – he stands helplessly with tears running down his cheek as the teacher as Tyagi makes communal remarks and urges classmates to hit harder – surfaced last week and triggered outrage, with opposition politicians targeting the ruling BJP. In the horrific video, loud slaps are heard as the students follow their teacher’s instruction. “Why don’t you hit harder? Whose turn is it?” Ms Tyagi can be heard in the gut-wrenching video.
The boy was humiliated and forced to stand for hours, his father told police. “The teacher made the students beat my child again and again. My son was tortured for an hour or two. He is scared,” the father said after the incident, which took place on Thursday last week.
Ms Tyagi, who is also headmistress at the Neha Public School, also faces charges but has declared she is “not ashamed” of her actions. She had justified her brutal actions, claiming it was necessary to “control” the children while at school. She also dismissed controversy labelling it a “minor issue… unnecessarily turned into a big issue” and denied any communal angle.
The boy was taken to Meerut for a medical check-up and is now better, his father added. Muzaffarnagar District Magistrate Aravind Mallappa Bangari said the FIR against Ms Tyagi was registered after the parents overcame their reluctance. The father had said he would not press charges against the school but also that his son would not go the school.
Tyagi in her video message stressed that she had no communal motive behind asking students to slap their Muslim classmate. With folded hands, she repeated that she had “made a mistake” and sought forgiveness.
In the video message, the 60-year-old teacher and principal said, “I made a mistake, but there was no Hindu-Muslim motive. The children had not done their homework and my intention was to ensure that they memorise (the lessons).” Tripta Tyagi said she was handicapped. “I could not get up, so I asked some children to slap him a couple of times so that he starts studying,” she said.
The elderly woman, who now faces a police case, alleged that the video was doctored and circulated to “create a Hindu-Muslim issue.” “I accept with folded hands that I made a mistake. But I did not have any Hindu-Muslim divide in mind. The parents of many Muslim students cannot afford the school fee. I teach them for free. I had no intention to torture Muslim children.”
