Hindu children studying in a government school in Tamil Nadu have accused a Christian teacher of abusing Hindu deities and forcing them to say Christian prayers. The video of a girl revealing these details has gone viral, and the district collector has ordered a probe into the issue.

A girl student of the Government Higher Secondary school in Kannattuvilai, Kanyakumari, has lodged a complaint with the help of her parents against a Christian teacher in her school. Nearly 300 children from nearby areas go to this school. The sewing teacher, Beatrice Thangam, is forcing children to say Christian prayers and abusing Hindu deities and beliefs.

A video of the 6th-grade student describing her acts has gone viral on social media. The girl says, “She told us to read the Bible. We said that we are Hindus; We read Bhagavat Gita. But she said that Bhagavad Gita is evil and that the Bible had good things, so we should read the Bible.” She told these details to the police while filing the complaint.

When police prompted her to tell more about what else the Christian teacher said, she talked about a story of Satan(Hindu) and a Christian. The story goes, “Satan and a Christian were riding on a bike. They met with an accident and died. Some people were reading Bible nearby, and the dead people were resurrected”. The teacher had also forced the children to say Christian prayers.

She would make them stitch the Cross symbol first and forced them to pray on the school premises. She asked them to kneel, join their hands and say Christian prayers at lunchtime. The girl said she called everyone to pray again after lunch but Hindu children refused to join.

The children told their parents, and one of them went to the police. As the girl’s confession video went viral on social media, the district collector ordered a probe into the issue. District Educational Officer has directed the school to suspend the teacher and assured that authorities would take further action once the investigation is over.

In January, a 17-year-old Hindu girl Lavanya committed suicide, unable to bear the harassment by Christian nuns in her school. In a deathbed confession, she revealed that she was asked to convert to Christianity and tortured by the nuns for refusing to do so. Even though the incident attained importance at the national level, the DMK government tried to bury it as a case of just physical harassment and sabotage the investigation.