Farooq Ahmed, a teacher at the Government Higher Secondary School (Bani), thrashed a Hindu student reportedly for writing Jai Shri Ram on the blackboard.
Teacher Farooq Ahmed arrested for thrashing Hindu student
On Saturday, August 26, the police arrested a teacher named Farooq Ahmed from Kathua. He had hit a Hindu student for writing “Jai Shri Ram” on the blackboard at the Government Higher Secondary School in Bani. The school’s principal, Mohammed Hafiz, is currently missing. This incident led to protests as many people were upset about the teacher’s actions.
Both the teacher and the principal are accused in this matter. The student who was hurt is in the hospital, and his father, Kuldeep Singh, complained to the police on August 25. He said that his son was beaten up by the teacher and the principal. The police registered a case against them under the relevant laws related to such incidents. The police arrested the teacher with the help of a team.
The police are still looking for the principal. A senior police official mentioned that they are investigating the matter. The District Commissioner of Kathua, Rakesh Minhas, put together a team of three people to look into the matter. This team includes a local officer, an education officer, and a school principal.
The order from the District Commissioner asked the team to find out what really happened and provide a report with their findings and suggestions within two days. They were also told to figure out who was responsible for this incident. A video of the student talking about what happened went viral on social media. In the video, the student says that his teacher Ahmed, and the principal beat him badly because he wrote “Jai Shri Ram” on the board.
The police confirmed that this incident happened on August 25 and that the student was thrashed because of writing “Jai Shri Ram”. Hindus protested against the teacher and the principal after this incident. They demanded strict action against them from the police and the school authorities. Subsequently, the teacher and the principal were booked and charged under various sections of the Indian Penal Code and Juvenile Justice Act.
Other incidents of attacks on Hindu students
Recently, several incidents similar to the one in Kathua were reported from across Bharat. In Delhi, a boy was removed from the government school because he greeted his fellow students with Jai Shri Ram. The teacher and principal degraded him by using the term ‘andhbhakt’ for him. This indicates the level of hatred people in ‘authority’ have for a simple Hindu greeting in a ‘Hindu-majority’ country.
On August 18th, an Islamist mob was seen baying for the blood of a minor Hindu boy, allegedly even pelting stones at his home, in the Bareilly district of Uttar Pradesh over ‘blasphemy’. Even the local police station was besieged by the mob and additional forces had to be rushed to control the situation. This occurred following an incident where a Hindu Class 9 student reportedly reacted to an abusive and sacrilegious post against Hindu Dharma made by his Muslim classmate.
Two incidents took place in July, one in Rajasthan and the other in Madhya Pradesh (MP). It was reported that a Hindu student was asked to remove his tilak, and when he refused to do so, Muslim students forcibly removed his tilak and started beating him. The incident took place in Alwar’s Ramgarh. In MP’s Rajgarh, students were stopped from reciting the Gayatri mantra by the Principal after teacher Majeeda Siddiqui objected to it. The video even shows the Principal scolding the students.
When Hindu students stopped a Muslim student from eve-teasing, he brought his friends and started fighting. The Muslim students also raised ‘Allahu Akbar’ slogans on the college premises. The incident took place in the commerce college of Anand. The incident took place on April 15.
A think-tank in the UK found out that Hindu pupils were told by their Muslim classmates that if they wanted to avoid being bullied and make their lives easier then they should convert to Islam. Hinduphobia has also been reported in the UK schools.
At least 15 pupils of Pakistan’s minority Hindu community were targeted by a radical student organisation for celebrating the Holi festival. The incident took place at Punjab University premises in Lahore in April this year. A similar attack took at the University of Karachi where student organization Islami Jamiat-e-Talaba (IJT) thrashed Hindu students and stopped them from celebrating Holi.
In April 2023 in Uttarakhand, Azhar Sultana, the principal of Gautam International School ordered the children to come to school wearing white clothes and skull caps for her ‘farewell namaz’. Earlier on Holi, there was a ban on playing Holi within a radius of 200 meters. In August this year, teacher Shafiq Khan mercilessly thrashed a student in MP’s Chhatarpur, as he was wearing a kada (religious bracelet).
In April last year, a minor Hindu girl was physically assaulted by government school teacher Nisar Ahmed in J&K’s Rajouri. The girl was beaten by the teacher because she turned up at school with a tilak on her forehead that she put after a pooja at home amid the ongoing Navratri festival. Last October, in UP’s (Uttar Pradesh) Unnao a five-year-old Hindu boy was forcibly circumcised by the Maulana.
A case of religious discrimination against a Hindu boy Pawan Sen at the hands of his Muslim teacher Nishat Begum was reported from the Raisen district of Madhya Pradesh in September 2021. The teacher at Government New Boys Secondary School, Garatganj allegedly used some Muslim boys from outside the school to beat up the victim, an 8th standard student. His ‘crime’ was that even after objections from the teacher, he used to go to school wearing a tilak.
