Finance
New Delhi: Four students of a Delhi school have alleged that their teacher made communal remarks and asked them why their families did not go to Pakistan during Partition.
Amid the uproar, a viral video from Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, depicts students slapping a Muslim classmate as per their teacher’s instructions. In the video, Tripta Tyagi, the teacher, can be heard making communal remarks.
Delhi Police have registered a case against Hema Gulati, a teacher at Government Sarvodaya Bal Vidyalaya in Gandhi Nagar, following complaints by the families of the Class 9 students. Police said they are investigating the allegations.
According to the complaint by one of the students, Hema Gulati made the communal remarks on Wednesday. She made derogatory remarks on the Kaaba — the sacred stone building at Mecca — and the Quran, the complaint said. “During Partition, you did not go to Pakistan. You stayed in India. You have no contribution in India’s freedom,” the complaint quoted the teacher as saying. A copy of the complaint shows it was filed on Friday evening.
The students’ families have said such remarks can lead to discord in school and demanded that the teacher be sacked.
A woman, whose two children study in the school, told news agency ANI, “If this teacher goes unpunished, others will get emboldened. They should be told to just teach and not speak on matters about which they have no knowledge. There is no use of a teacher who creates differences among students. We demand that the teacher be removed from the school, she should not teach in any school.”
Local MLA and Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) leader Anil Kumar Bajpai has slammed the teacher. “This is absolutely wrong. The responsibility of a teacher is to give good education to the children. The teacher should not pass derogatory comments against any religious or holy place. Such people should be arrested,” he said, according to news agency PTI.
The complaints against the Delhi teacher come amid the outcry against Tripta Tyagi for putting a Muslim student through the traumatic experience of being slapped by his classmates. The 60-year-old teacher has admitted that she “made a mistake” but stressed that she had no communal motive. A police case has been registered against her and the boy’s family has demanded strict action. The boy, shaken by what he went through, has now been shifted to another school.
