Gurugram: The Faridabad district education officer (DEO) on Thursday “annulled” a controversial letter that warned schools about students allegedly skipping classes and engaging in “anti-social activities” and “love jihad”.
The letter, issued on Wednesday and circulated widely on social media, instructed all government and private schools to create WhatsApp groups with parents to monitor daily attendance and threatened stern action against institutions if such cases came to notice.
DEO Anshu Garg told The Print on Thursday the letter was issued after a complaint was received on the CM Window portal.
“A complaint was received on CM Window, which alleged that students from various schools in Faridabad were leaving during school hours and engaging in antisocial activities and love jihad in different parks. The letter was issued to file an action-taken report to the government,” Garg said.
But, the DEO added, she issued another letter on 30 October, annulling the previous one as the “education department did not receive any complaint”.
Wednesday’s communication – titled in Hindi as students “engaging in antisocial activities and love jihad in different parks, thereby disturbing the social fabric and polluting the environment” – outlined strict monitoring measures for schools.
It said the department had received multiple reports of schoolchildren abandoning classes to gather in local parks for activities described as those “disrupting public order and the education environment”.
It instructed schools to mark attendance within 30 minutes of the session starting and immediately share the list of absent students in class-specific parent WhatsApp groups to ensure “immediate awareness”. Schools were also directed to maintain close supervision over students to prevent involvement in such activities.
The letter had positioned the move as a “proactive measure to safeguard youth from external influences” and warned that non-compliance would face strict repercussions. It said that any future complaints reaching the district education office would trigger departmental action against the school, potentially including penalties or administrative reviews.
The directive drew sharp criticism from academics. Mahabir Jaglan, a retired professor from Kurukshetra University, described it as “shocking and unbecoming of an educationist”.
“Keeping students in discipline is one matter. But from where does the term ‘love jihad’ come in all this? Such language doesn’t behove an officer of the government’s education department,” he said.
Jaglan alleged political leaders have been using terms like “love jihad’.
“Now, even some bureaucrats and officers have started using terminology suited to their political bosses to attract their attention,” he added.
CM Window functions as a public grievance redressal system, which is monitored by an official from the chief minister’s office.
‘Love jihad’ is a term used by some outfits and the right-wing to refer to inter-faith relationships, which – they claim – have been possible because of forced conversions.
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