New Delhi: The complainant in the case against a government school principal in Rajasthan’s Kota has told ThePrint he was advised to file an FIR by the assistant of education minister Madan Dilawar. The principal, Shafi Mohammad Ansari, was arrested Saturday for deleting Ganesh Chaturthi wishes from an official WhatsApp group of which he is an admin.
Ansari was granted bail and released the same day on a bond of ₹20,000.
Pradeep Nagar, the complainant—also an aide of BJP MLA from Sangod and junior minister Heeralal Nagar—told ThePrint that he had called state Education Minister Madan Dilawar after the incident, but the minister’s assistant answered the phone and suggested filing an FIR against Ansari.
A family member of Ansari, meanwhile, defended him saying the government school principal was unfamiliar with WhatsApp and deleted the messages by mistake. “Ansari sahab is not tech-savvy and was unaware of WhatsApp features, which led to the message being deleted by mistake.”
The family member argued that Ansari intended to delete the message only for himself using the “delete for me” option, but mistakenly tapped the “delete for everyone” instead for both messages in question.
Ansari was arrested Saturday in Laturi village, Kota Rural, after he deleted two messages wishing members of an official School Management Development Committee (SMDC) WhatsApp group on Ganesh Chaturthi.
Despite Ansari saying it was done unintentionally, pro-Hindutva outfits filed a complaint against him the same day. They also submitted a memorandum to the police accusing Ansari of ‘repeat offences’, without giving details, and demanded strict action, including his dismissal.
The government senior secondary school, of which Ansari has been principal for the past two years, has more than 300 students.
‘Ansari’s activities were suspicious’
On 7 September, at around 10 am, Ansari deleted a message from Bharat Nagar, another aide of MLA Heeralal, wishing all Ganesh Chaturthi on a School Management Development Committee (SMDC) WhatsApp group.
About an hour later, Ansari deleted another message related to the festival sent by school teacher Jodhraj Meena.
The WhatsApp group, named SMDC, created by the school secretary, includes the MLA’s aides as well as school teachers and staff members and is used for official purposes. The group has multiple admins—who can delete messages for everyone within two days of the message being sent.
After Ansari deleted the messages, around 20 activists from pro-Hindutva outfits, including Bajrang Dal, landed up at the school and questioned him about why he had deleted the messages. He claimed that it was a mistake.
Some villagers also gathered outside the school and held demonstrations against the principal.
In a message written in Hindi and posted on the group the same day, Ansari said, “It was a mistake; I had no intention of doing that. My intentions did not hurt any religious sentiments. I apologise if I did anything unintentionally.”
But deleting two back-to-back messages was indicative of Ansasri’s “intentions”, said Nagar who said he filed a police complaint against the principal on the advice of the assistant of the state education minister.
“Ansari’s activities were suspicious; when someone tried to put a garland and tilak on him, he would refuse,” Nagar told ThePrint, adding that while not applying tilak is a personal choice, deleting the messages was wrong.
In his opinion, Ansari should have extended greetings instead. Nagar did, however, add that this “was the first time Ansari deleted a post, and he had never done that before”.
Bharat Nagar, who sent one of the two Ganesh Chaturthi messages in the group, told ThePrint over the phone that he spoke with Rajasthan Education Minister Madan Dilawar and submitted an incident report to him. Dilawar assured him that strict action would be taken against Ansari.
Dilawar confirmed that the incident from his constituency, Ramganj Mandi, was reported to him, but added, “I have nothing to do with this. It came to my attention as a local issue, which the police have resolved. If Ansari repeats his actions in the future, we will take strict action.”
Defending the principal, his family member quoted earlier said there are other Hindu festival-related messages in the WhatsApp group that have not been deleted. “The group received an initial message with Diwali greetings and a recent Janmashtami greeting, both of which are still there.”
(Edited by Sanya Mathur)
Ms. Heena Fatima, I bet Mr. Ansari does not make the same “mistake” in case of Eid and Ramzan greetings messages posted on WhatsApp groups.