UP slapping case: Boy moves to new school; minorities panel seeks report

The schoolboy who was slapped by his classmates on the instructions of a teacher, will go to another private school a few kilometres from Muzaffarnagar’s Khubbapur village, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind has said.

District president of the organisation, Maulana Mukarram, told PTI on Monday (August 28) that Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind has decided to sponsor the boy’s education and arranged for his admission to an English-medium school in Shahpur town.

He said the organisation has hired a vehicle to ferry the boy to and from the new school where he has been admitted to Upper KG, and asserted that the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind will sponsor his education for as long as he wants to study.

Mukarram said members of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Hind had visited the boy’s family on Sunday on the direction of its president Arshad Madani. The boy’s father and members of the organisation visited the new school on Monday and completed the admission procedure, he added.

Minorities panel takes cognizance

The Uttar Pradesh Minorities Commission has taken suo motu cognizance of the incident based on media reports. Officials said that Commission has asked the District Magistrate and the Senior Superintendent of Police of Muzaffarnagar to send an eight-point report about the incident.

The Commission has also directed the BSA of Muzaffarnagar and teacher Tripta Tyagi to physically appear before it in Lucknow on September 6.

A video of the Muslim boy getting slapped by his classmates on the directions of the teacher, who was also seen making objectionable remarks against the community, went viral on social media a few days ago, triggering an outrage from all quarters. Tyagi has been booked.

The school remained closed for the third day on Monday, with its management saying they were busy replying to the show-cause notice served to it by the education department over the school’s affiliation. Basic Shiksha Adhikari, Shubham Shukla, told PTI that the school was sent a show-cause notice on Saturday over its affiliation and was asked to submit its reply on Monday.

Teacher booked

The school had in 2019 got affiliation for three years. Despite the affiliation expiring last year, the school management did not try to get it renewed, he said. Shukla said the school will not be closed and normal teaching activities will continue in the interest of students till an alternative is arranged for them.

Tyagi has been booked under IPC sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) on the complaint of the boy’s family. Tyagi, in her defence, has said the clip was tampered with to give a communal colour to the matter and claimed that the video was shot by the student’s uncle.

She has, however, admitted that getting the student slapped by his classmates was wrong, but said it was because she was physically challenged and was not able to stand up and reach the student.

The boy’s father told PTI that his son was taken to Meerut for a medical checkup on Sunday after he complained of sleeplessness. He said his son has returned home and is now normal.