As a horrifying video went viral on Friday of a teacher in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar district ordering students to slap a seven-year-old Muslim classmate, the police said they are investigating the matter.
“We will file the case after seeing the video and recording the statements of the child and his parents,” the sub-inspector at the Mansurpur police station told Scroll.
The National Commission for Protection of Child Rights has also taken cognisance of the incident and “legal action is being taken”, the organisation’s chairperson, Priyank Kanoongo, said on the social media site X.
The child studied in the lower kindergarten at Neha Public School in Khubapur village, his parents told Scroll. His father, Irshad Tyagi, a farmer, identified the teacher as Tripta Tyagi.
In the video, after one student strikes the Muslim boy who is standing in front of the class, the teacher can be heard urging other students to get up and hit him harder. Off camera, a male voice can be heard approving the action.
“When my son came home yesterday he was crying,” said the boy’s mother, Rubina. “We didn’t take it seriously. We thought that the teacher must have punished him for not doing his home work. But when we saw the video we were shocked.”
The video was shot…
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