UP slap video: FIR filed against Muzaffarnagar schoolteacher

Muzaffarnagar Police in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday (August 26) booked the teacher accused of making communal comments and ordering her students to slap a Muslim classmate for not doing his homework.

The action came a day after a video showing a teacher asking her students to slap a Class 2 boy at a school in Khubbapur village elicited strong reaction from several political leaders.

Samajwadi Party (SP) blamed the “politics of hate" of BJP and RSS for the incident. The BJP shot back at it with a charge of indulging in “superficial politics”. In her defence, teacher Tripti Tyagi said that the video has been tampered with in order to stoke tensions.

She, however, said though it was wrong on her part to get a student slapped by classmates, she was forced to do it as she is handicapped and was not able to stand up and reach the student who had not done his assignment.

Police booked Tyagi after the boy's family lodged a complaint, but they have not yet revealed the sections she has been charged with.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had on Friday (August 25) in a post on X condemned the incident saying, “sowing the poison of discrimination in the minds of innocent children, turning a holy place like school into a marketplace of hatred – nothing worse a teacher can do for the country. This is the same kerosene spread by the BJP which has set every corner of India on fire. Children are the future of India – we all have to teach them love not hatred.”

Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA) of Muzaffarnagar Shubham Shukla told PTI on Saturday (August 26) that a criminal case would be registered against the authorities of the school, where the incident took place. A team has been sent to the school and strict action will be taken against the school management, the BSA said.

Earlier in the day, the SP alleged that it was the “politics of hate” of BJP and RSS which had brought the country to such a pass where a teacher could ask her students to slap a boy from a minority community over his religion.

SP chief Akhilesh Yadav too in a post demanded the teacher be sacked immediately and called her a “blot on teacher society”. Rashtriya Lok Dal president Jayant Chaudhary spoke to Irshad, the father of the victim, and assured him of justice.

BJP spokesperson Harishchandra Srivastava termed Yadav's post on X a political agenda. “The tweet made by Akhilesh Yadav regarding the Muzaffarnagar school incident is superficial politics and a disgusting political agenda to create disharmony in the society. We all in our student life have been punished by the teacher in school for not remembering tables, not correcting maths questions or not having good writing, and this is a natural process of improving discipline and talent in students,” he said.

The police administration has taken cognizance of the matter and action will be taken against the teacher concerned, he added.

Pilibhit BJP MP Varun Gandhi in a post on X said the incident was shameful. “The feeling of hatred towards a child in the temple of knowledge has made the whole country hang its head in shame. A teacher is a gardener who not only builds a personality but also a nation by putting fertiliser in the form of knowledge in the primary rites. So the expectations from a teacher are high beyond dirty politics. It is a question of the future of the country,” Varun said.

Circle Officer Ravi Shankar had on Friday (August 25) said that prima facie it has emerged that the student was beaten up for not completing the school work and there was nothing objectionable in it.

(With agency inputs)