Teacher allegedly urges students to hit Muslim classmate in northern India
New Delhi, Aug 26 (EFE).- A teacher in northern India allegedly forced her students to slap and beat a Muslim student, according to footage captured on a viral video that sparked a wave of outrage across the Asian country on Saturday.
In the footage, a seven-year-old boy cries as several of his classmates take turns slapping him, as a teacher at an educational center in the northern state of Uttar Pradesh, Trapta Tyagi, seemingly cheers them on.
“I have declared, all the Mohammadan (Muslim) children should go,” Tyagi says in the video, recorded by an unidentified man in Muzaffarnagar district who responds by saying “You are right, they ruin the education here.”
One of the students slaps the boy again as the man recording the video laughs in the background.
Tyagi then asks: “Why are you hitting like that? Hit him harder. Whose turn is it now?.”
The assault occurred after the young Muslim student failed to learn his times’ tables, according to Muzaffarnagar Superintendent of Police Satyanarayan Prajapat.
“Today, Mansurpur police station received a video wherein a woman teacher was ordering students of a class to beat a child for not learning multiplication tables. There were some objectionable comments too,” the officer said in a video statement.
“When we investigated, we found that the woman was ‘declaring’ in the video that Mohammedan students get spoiled when their mothers don’t pay attention to their studies,” Prajapat continued. “The basic education officer has been informed and departmental action will be taken against the teacher.”
Police have filed charges against the teacher.
Initially, the victim’s father said he would stop sending his son to the school but would not file a complaint, according to statements reported by the Indian Express newspaper.
The incident has generated a wave of condemnation in the Asian country, where politicians and citizens have denounced what happened in Muzaffarnagar amid growing tensions with minority groups, especially Muslims, who represent about 15% of the Indian population.
“Sowing the poison of discrimination in the minds of innocent children, turning a holy place like school into a market place of hatred – nothing worse a teacher can do for the country,” Rahul Gandhi, a member of the opposition Indian National Congress said on X, formerly known as Twitter.
Gandhi blamed the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Prime Minister Narendra Modi for “spreading the kerosene which has set every corner of India on fire..” EFE
iq-daa/ch
