JAMMU: A Class X student had to be hospitalised after being severely beaten, allegedly by the Muslim principal and a teacher of a school in Jammu’s Kathua district, for writing “Jai Shri Ram” on the blackboard, triggering protests that forced a shutdown of the institution.
The row at the Bani Govt Higher Secondary School coincided with the raging rancorous debates over a schoolteacher in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar asking students to slap a Muslim boy in her class.
In Jammu, the protesters alleged that Urdu teacher Farooq dragged the boy, Neeraj, out of class on Friday while showering kicks and blows and took him to principal Mohd Hafeez’s room where they both “beat him to pulp” over his “Jai Shri Ram” blackboard scrawl.
On Saturday, a large number of students took to the streets of Bani — a mixed neighbourhood — demanding suspension of the two teachers. The agitated group reached the school gates and found them locked but broke the lock and stormed into the premises.
Pranav Sharma, vice-president of Bajrang Dal’s J&K unit, joined the protests. “Some people now consider ‘Jai Shri Ram’ to be a felony,” Sharma said, iterating the demand for action against the two teachers.
Sharma slammed AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi’s remarks holding UP CM Yogi Adityanath “responsible” for the Muzaffarnagar slapping and wondered if he “has anything to say about this (the Bani beating)”.
SDM Satish Shama and other officials tried to pacify the protesters and said a three-member inquiry committee would probe the Bani beating, followed by a report “fixing responsibility within two days”.
Kathua SSP Shivdeep Singh Jamwal said a case had been registered and “further investigations are on”. Similar protests were reported from Basholi, Duggan and other places in Kathua district.
Earlier, in March last year, a group of girl students from a government school in Jammu’s Kishtwar claimed that they were threatened by some fellow-students for chanting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” in the morning assembly after the national anthem.
The row at the Bani Govt Higher Secondary School coincided with the raging rancorous debates over a schoolteacher in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar asking students to slap a Muslim boy in her class.
In Jammu, the protesters alleged that Urdu teacher Farooq dragged the boy, Neeraj, out of class on Friday while showering kicks and blows and took him to principal Mohd Hafeez’s room where they both “beat him to pulp” over his “Jai Shri Ram” blackboard scrawl.
On Saturday, a large number of students took to the streets of Bani — a mixed neighbourhood — demanding suspension of the two teachers. The agitated group reached the school gates and found them locked but broke the lock and stormed into the premises.
Pranav Sharma, vice-president of Bajrang Dal’s J&K unit, joined the protests. “Some people now consider ‘Jai Shri Ram’ to be a felony,” Sharma said, iterating the demand for action against the two teachers.
Sharma slammed AIMIM chief Asaduddin Owaisi’s remarks holding UP CM Yogi Adityanath “responsible” for the Muzaffarnagar slapping and wondered if he “has anything to say about this (the Bani beating)”.
SDM Satish Shama and other officials tried to pacify the protesters and said a three-member inquiry committee would probe the Bani beating, followed by a report “fixing responsibility within two days”.
Kathua SSP Shivdeep Singh Jamwal said a case had been registered and “further investigations are on”. Similar protests were reported from Basholi, Duggan and other places in Kathua district.
Earlier, in March last year, a group of girl students from a government school in Jammu’s Kishtwar claimed that they were threatened by some fellow-students for chanting “Bharat Mata Ki Jai” in the morning assembly after the national anthem.