UP: Boy slapped by classmates on teacher's instruction moves to another school

Muzaffarnagar: The school boy who was slapped by his classmates on the instructions of the school teacher, is moving to another private school some kilometres from the Khubbapur village here, the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind said on Monday.

District president of the organisation Maulana Mukarram on Monday told PTI that Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind has undertaken 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 for ferrying the boy to and from the new school where he has been admitted to Upper KG and asserted that the Jamiat-e-Ulema Hind will sponsor his education as long as he wants to study.

Mukarram said members of the Jamiat-e-Ulema 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.

Meanwhile, the Uttar Pradesh Minorities Commission has taken suo motu cognizance of the incident on the basis of reports in the media.

Officials here said that the Commission has asked the district magistrate and senior superintendent of police of Muzaffarnagar to send an eight-point report about the incident.

The Commission has also directed that 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 school 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. The teacher Tripta Tyagi has been booked.

The school remained closed for the third day on Monday, with its management saying that 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 has been asked to submit its reply on Monday on the issue of its affiliation.

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 there in the interests of students till an alternate arrangement is made for them.

The teacher of the school has been booked under Indian Penal Code 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, had said the clip had been tampered with to give a communal colour to the matter and claimed that the video was shot by the student's uncle.

She had, 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 not being able to sleep. He said that his son has returned home and is now normal.

Inputs from PTI