Sonipat: It took a scandalous OTT series called Virodh on MX player for Haryana’s most prestigious sports school to grow suspicious of everyone entering its gate. Now, every arrival triggers an alert to the security department and the CCTV footage is under constant review.
It wasn’t always the case.
The show, produced by Manish Trehan, was shot on the campus of Motilal Nehru School of Sports (MNSS). Some scenes showed the characters smoking, drinking and having sex in the hostel. The actors wore the school’s uniform with the academy’s logo visible on the school’s building in the background. The school shown in the series was called Kamla Nehru School – which is also the name of MNSS’s junior wing.
The series that came out on 28 March 2023 wasn’t a runaway success but enough to damage parents’ confidence. Over hundred families have pulled out their teenage children from the school since its release.
“We are monitoring everything because it’s not only a question of the school’s reputation but also the careers of students who have trusted us and are studying here,” said a senior teacher on condition of anonymity.
But it was the OTT series that got the story all wrong. The problem was the principal of the school, not its students’ behaviour.
On 2 July, former principal Col (retd) Ashok Mor was dismissed by Haryana’s sports department “with immediate effect” after being found guilty of financial irregularities and violating government rules. He is accused of appointing employees on a contractual basis despite a ban on such engagements. He is also alleged to have caused a financial loss of Rs 1.35 crore to the government by disregarding instructions and issuing backdated letters.
Additionally, Mor is accused of using school funds to repair the school’s swimming pool with the help of students, instead of having the work done by the Public Works Department (PWD). He is also alleged to have violated the Print Media Advertisement Policy guidelines of 2007 by publishing his photos in newspapers for admission purposes.
The former principal’s unravelling began with a police complaint filed by vice principal Moushami Ghoshal On 5 June 2023, against the director and producer at the Rai police station — the block where the school is situated. A year later, on 19 June 2024, Mor was arrested. He procured bail on the same day.
Ranked number 3 among government residential sports schools in 2021, MNSS is now caught in the eye of a storm.
Established in 1973, MNSS was one-of-its kind public residential sports school. Founded by then Chief Minister Bansi Lal and built on a sprawling 250 acres campus, the school has been traditionally run by retired Army officers. The administration said that the school was developed on the lines of Sainik school. Actor Randeep Hooda, journalist Sandeep Choudhary of ABP News and several IAS and IPS officers are its alumni.
Now the inquiry has found Col. Mor responsible for favoritism among students, misconduct, harassment, and even helping organise BJP rallies on campus. It turned out that the “incorrect portrayal” in the series is only the tip of the iceberg. The real problem was principal Mor’s regressive and sexist policing of students.
Now, the school administration is striving to earn back the respect, reaching out to parents who have pulled their wards out and conducting strict reviews of its day-to-day affairs.
“What was depicted in the web series was completely wrong. Such incidents are unthinkable at this school. Access to the girls’ hostel is out of bounds, with a high boundary wall in place. We have dedicated teachers and hostel staff tasked with ensuring the safety and security of our students. Similarly, the boys’ hostel is also fortified with guards and CCTV surveillance,” said Moushami Ghoshal who has been with the school for 36 years and has now been promoted as its principal.
The flouting of norms
It was former VC of Sports University of Haryana SS Deshwal who asked then vice-principal Moushami Ghoshal to file a complaint against the makers of the film. The complaint said that the school had not given an NOC (No Objection Certificate) to the producer and had demanded them to show the movie before the release. However, the producer bypassed the school authorities and released the show.
“Students have been shown smoking cigarettes and drinking inside the hostel. The web series has several obscene scenes. The uniform and logos of the students have also been shown,” the FIR read.
Following the complaint, the producer spoke to the administration accusing Col. Mor of giving permission to film in lieu of half-a-dozen laptops.
“The producer said that the principal had asked for a few laptops for students and he had given them. Where have these laptops gone, nobody knows,” said a senior teacher on condition of anonymity.
Director Rahul Dahiya, who is one of the accused in the FIR, said that the web series was not based on the school and that he was not involved in the permission process but only facilitated the meeting with the principal. Dahiya was also an ex-student of the school.
“The school was only 12 minutes of the 170-minute-long series that had seven episodes. It was a small part of the script. We needed a boarding school for our story. So I took the contact of the principal from a senior and called him. He was welcoming to the idea and called us for the meeting,” added Dahiya.
It has been proved that Mor did not obtain permission from the state government for shooting the web series on campus. We are working on the charge sheet now
— Umesh Kumar, SHO at Rai police station
The web series shooting went on for seven days in December 2021 without the principal consulting the teachers or the administration, the school authorities. The producer was allowed to procure school uniforms.
However, Dahiya said that the school logo and uniform were not removed from the series even after he had flagged it.
“It is a standard procedure to remove the logo and the name of the school with VFX. However, they (producer and his team) refused to remove it, saying that it will require a lot of money,” said Dahiya.
ThePrint reached out to Manish Terhan, the producer, but he didn’t answer.
After the movie was released last year, parents began queuing up outside the administration office. Their anger was not solely directed at the web series but also stemmed from a build-up of ongoing issues they had been facing vis a vis the principal’s conduct. The film emboldened them to take a stand, and shortly after its release, students began leaving the school.
Sonia Mor, the wife of former principal Col. Ashok Mor, claimed that the school administration was conspiring to tarnish her husband’s reputation.
“My husband is a decorated officer. He expected the school admin to do their jobs and that’s why he is not liked. He aimed to restore the school’s lost glory. They were afraid that their illegal activities would be exposed, so they conspired against him,” Mor said during a phone conversation.
She alleged the administration made money out of food tenders.
Col Mor did not respond to the calls and messages.
Meanwhile, the police are working on the chargesheet.
“It has been proved that Mor did not obtain permission from the state government for shooting the web series on campus. We are working on the chargesheet now,” said SHO at Rai police station, Umesh Kumar.
The school administration said that according to the rules, any decision that affects the school must be approved by the government. Everything has to pass through the state sports department and approved by the department’s principal secretary IPS Navdeep Singh Virk.
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Tanashahi
Since 1989, when Ghoshal joined the school as a teacher, she has steadily rose the ranks to become the vice principal. Now, as a principal, she is at the forefront of a rescue operation – to salvage the school’s reputation. From calling parents to meeting them and holding regular staff meetings. She has even issued a circular asking students who went on long leaves after Mor joined as principal to join back on 7 July. And she is confident that one stray web series can’t undermine the storied reputation of the institution.
Now, she is working on another circular to facilitate the joining of students who left the school. Around 200 students have gone on a long leave, and over 100 students have left the school, the administration said. Not because of the OTT series after allegedly being “mistreated” by the former principal.
“Several students went on long leaves because of the toxic environment in the school, they just couldn’t bear it. Many left the school. Now, we want the students who have left the school to join back. We are working on the ways to facilitate them,” said a senior coach.
From banning non-vegetarian diet in the school, selecting who should play which sport, and facilitating BJP/RSS rallies and lectures in the school, Col Mor has been accused, by the administration and the students, of maligning the school’s reputation.
“Can you imagine non vegetarian food including eggs were banned because the principal thought that such food increases sexual urges among teenagers,” said a school official.
“It was total tanashahi,” the official added.
But Sonia Mor, who is also a BJP worker, said that the school never served non-veg in the past and the parents were against it.
“In Haryana, sportsmen don’t eat non veg and when parents are against it, how can we impose it on them?”
A portrait of Motilal Nehru stands tall at the entrance of the administrative block of the school. There was uncanny silence on the campus on a Monday, occasionally broken by the intermittent laughter of students playing basketball. A code of silence permeates the administration, with nobody willing to speak about what transpired at the school in the last two years.
It was not only students but the teachers too, who left the school, alleging that the former principal used to insult them. There are currently at least 20 vacancies for teachers and coaches, the school administration said.
In January, an economics teacher who had been teaching at the school for 30 years left, alleging that the former principal “intentionally” picked on him.
“He would insult him daily, swamp him with work, and then accuse him of not finishing it. Someone who had been teaching economics for 30 years was told he doesn’t know what he was teaching. Why would anyone work in such an environment?” asked another senior school teacher on condition of anonymity.
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Killing the dream
Fourteen-year-old Amu had dreamt of becoming a basketball player since she was in Class IV. Her coach in school, a former Air Force officer, had planted this dream, spotting her height and agility. But one day, it all ended in a blink and she had to leave the school.
In April this year, she was called by principal Mor and asked not to play basketball and choose another sport.
A resident of Sevali village in Sonipat, Amu, who was in Class IX then, insisted she only wanted to play basketball as she was good at it. She was suspended for 10 days. When parents went to the principal and asked him the reason behind the suspension, they were given an “arbitrary” response.
“We were told that our daughter was doing politics in the school. The principal said that he has received orders that girls won’t play basketball. We asked him to give the reason in writing but he refused,” said Anil Kumar, Amu’s father.
Kumar got his daughter out of the school and admitted her to a local government school. But there is no basketball court and her father can’t afford to send her to a private school. At the sports school, the fee was only Rs 35,000 for a year, which included accommodation and food.
The truth was something else — not the smoking, drinking and sex. It was the relentless harassment by the principal. The web series should have shown that
— said a former student
The family said they felt insulted. Amu’s her father asked her to forget about basketball and concentrate on her studies.
“The principal killed my dream of becoming a basketball player,” Amu cried, as her mother consoled her patting on her back.
Ghoshal, the new principal, is trying to get her back to the school. She has spoken to her parents and assured them that they are not scrapping basketball for girls.
“We are planning to set up an academic review board and look into the issues where we need to improve. We are going to hit the ground running,” says Ghoshal.
Mona, who is a Class XII student, was reprimanded for wearing cut sleeves in school. During farewell, Mona said that the principal sent his wife to check what students were wearing.
“And it was insane. She knocked at every door and asked girls to show what they were wearing,” said Mona.
In August 2022, Mona recalled her English class being abruptly cut short because all the students were asked to attend a BJP rally happening on the school campus. Big screens were set up, showing PM Modi inaugurating hospitals, and party workers chanted “Modi zindabad.”
“We were asked to sit on the sidelines and raise slogans. We had to leave our classes to attend a political event, and nobody could say a word because it was the principal’s order,” said Mona.
“It didn’t feel like a boarding school but a BJP office,” Mona laughed, as her friends chuckled.
Mona was in Class X when the web series was being shot on the campus. During breaks, she and her friends would go and watch the actors perform, the cameras recording and the retakes.
“It was fascinating to watch how a movie was made,” she said, smiling ear to ear.
When the movie came out in March last year, she along with parents watched it on their TV in excitement.
“I couldn’t watch it beyond two episodes. I was shocked to see what they were showing. It was untrue and it enraged me,” she said.
For the next few days, her parents questioned her about the content of the movie, and she kept defending the school.
“The truth was something else — not the smoking, drinking and sex. It was the relentless harassment by the school principal. The web series should have shown that.”
(Edited by Anurag Chaubey)