A seven-year-old Muslim student was subjected to humiliating mental and physical abuse by an extremist school teacher, with Hindutva ideology, in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populated state.
A video, now widespread on social media, exposed the teacher Trapta Tyagi, while inciting the classmates to slap the Muslim child without any reason and also demanded his removal from the school on the grounds of his faith.
The video, which emerged on Friday, further captured Trapata making derogatory remarks about Islam, while urging the other children to hit the boy with greater force. Disturbingly, a male voice can be heard in the background, expressing satisfaction over teacher’s hateful actions.
India may have made it to the moon but millions of Muslims still don't have basic rights as Muslims are lynched in public sight.
In this school the teacher asks Hindu children to slap a Muslim child, even berating them if they don't slap hard enoughhttps://t.co/ci0YVgDpl2
— muslim daily (@muslimdaily_) August 25, 2023
The video then shows the extremist RSS-driven school teacher saying, “I have declared that all Muslim children should go.” A man, with a similar hateful ideology, agrees with her, saying it “ruins the education” while the terrified child cries in front of the class.
About 20 percent of Uttar Pradesh’s 235 million people are Muslims. The parents of the victim, Mohammad Altamash, told Al Jazeera that the incident happened on Thursday at Neha Public School in Kubbapur village, about 30 km from Muzaffarnagar.
Response of the Victim’s Parents
“Yesterday, my son came home crying. He was traumatized. This is not how you treat kids,” expressed Rubina, the mother of the child, as quoted by Al Jazeera.
Mohammad Irshad, the father, recounted that the teacher “asked them to slap my son one by one”. He complained that the teacher justified her actions by stating that his son had not learned his lessons by heart.
“My son is good at his studies. He takes tuitions. We fail to understand why the teacher treated him like this. It seems that the teacher is filled with hate,” the 42-year-old lamented.
Indian police have urged social media users to refrain from sharing the video, leading many to delete it from their accounts. Irshad, a farmer, attributed the maltreatment of his son to the widespread hate against Muslims in India.
Rubina mentioned that the teacher allegedly had a history of provoking students to slap their classmates. She reported that a similar incident happened with her relative at the same school.
An Indian police officer stated that a case would be registered after getting statements from the victim and his parents.
The Islamophobic school is now under scrutiny. The teacher confessed to her hateful actions and promised to never mistreat her students again. Meanwhile, Irshad plans to enroll his son in a different school.
The incident, which sparked widespread outrage on social media, has led to increased discussions about the rise of Muslim persecution in India.
Note: Feature image shows students lining up to slap the victim one by one and another student slapping him while the teacher smirks in the background.
