Police in India are looking into a teacher after a video of her encouraging pupils to hit their Muslim classmate, 7, provoked uproar across the nation.
The child is shown on video of the incident, which happened in the Muzaffarnagar area of northern Uttar Pradesh, trembling in front of his classmates as the teacher orders them to strike him, as reported by CNN.
A man can be heard chuckling as the youngster wails as his classmates continue to hit him and the teacher is heard instructing the students to slap him "properly."
A Punishment For Not Remembering the Times Tables
Satyanarayan Prajapat, the superintendent of police in Muzaffarnagar, claimed on Friday that the teacher had instructed the kids to strike the boy "for not remembering his times tables."
A case against the teacher has been filed with the local police department, and an investigation is currently ongoing. The instructor is not formally facing any charges. The school has been forced to close by district officials as well.
After the Thursday event, the boy's father said that his youngster felt "uneasy and scared." He stated that although the child is doing much better today, he "was unable to sleep earlier and was left in shock" afterward.
After Neha Public School, the site of the incident was ordered to close, he informed that his son had subsequently been accepted to another school and had gone to his first day on Monday.
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Outrage in India
The incident has sparked widespread outrage and upheaval in India, the largest democracy in the world with 1.4 billion people, where the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) Hindu nationalist policies have exacerbated the nation's intercommunal tensions and allegedly fostered a climate of fear and alienation among minority groups.
Rahul Gandhi, a well-known opposition politician, wrote on Twitter, now known as X: "Turning a holy place like school into a marketplace of hatred - there is nothing worse than this that a teacher can do for the country." Gandhi charged the teacher with "sowing the poison of discrimination in the minds of innocent children." Gandhi accused the BJP of inciting religious hatred as well.
Prime Minister Narendra Modi said there was "absolutely no space" for discrimination in India while visiting the United States in June. The BJP has not yet responded to Gandhi's remarks, but it has long maintained it does not discriminate against minorities and "treats all its citizens with equality."
Although the Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Act of India forbids physical and verbal abuse of children, there is no legal definition of corporal punishment directed at them.
The teacher claimed the 7-year-old's father had begged her to discipline the child but that she was unable to do so due to her disability and had instead instructed the other students to do so.
The incident occurred when India's communal unrest was at its highest point in recent memory as a result of the BJP's widely supported yet divisive policies.
Following the BJP's election victory, research by economist Deepankar Basu found a 786% rise in hate crimes against all minorities between 2014 and 2018.
The tragedy occurred in Uttar Pradesh, the largest state in India with a population of around 200 million. It has a population that is multireligious, with Muslims making up around 20% of the total. It is still one of the most divisive states in India, nevertheless.
Yogi Adityanath, a former Hindu monk who joined the BJP, is the state's chief minister. He has faced criticism for his anti-Muslim rhetoric and Hindu-first policies, and the state has passed legislation that opponents claim is based on "Hindutva" - the core philosophy of Hindu nationalism.
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