The Supreme Court of India on Monday (September 25) appointed a senior IPS officer to investigate the case of a seven-year-old Muslim child, who was slapped repeatedly by his classmates on the directions of school principal.
The apex Court termed the incident as “serious and worrying”. It directed the Yogi Adityanath-led government to conduct counselling sessions for the child and the rest of his classmates involved in the incident. The court instructed the state government to submit a compliance report and take full responsibility for the child’s education.
Calling out the state government’s callous approach in the case, the Supreme Court questioned why the victim’s father’s statement that his child was targeted because of his religious identity was not mentioned in the FIR copy.
“It’s a matter of quality education, which also includes sensitive education,” the court said, adding, “It is a case of failure on the part of the UP government to comply with provisions of the Right to Education Act, which deals with providing quality, free and compulsory education to children up to 14 years, without any discrimination on the basis of caste, creed, or gender.”
The case has been adjourned to October 30.
Background
The incident occurred in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar’s Neha Public School on September 24.
It came to light after a viral video started circulating on social media in which the child is seen crying as his classmates take turns to slap him, under the ‘watchful eyes’ of the accused principal Tripta Tyagi. She is also heard instructing students to ‘slap harder’.
Initially, the 60-year-old said she was ‘not ashamed’ of the act. But as the incident sparked anger and outrage, she posted a video with folded hands claiming the purported video was ‘communally manipulated’.
“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 fees. I teach them for free. I had no intention to torture Muslim children.”
Speaking to ANI, the boy’s father said his child was traumatised by the incident. “My seven-year-old child was tortured for an hour or two. He is scared. We want the law should take its own course,” he said.
Following the incident and the outrage, police lodged a complaint against Tyagi.
