Lucknow: A video of a teacher in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar who eggs on her students to beat up a seven-year-old Muslim boy has kicked up a storm, prompting the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights (NCPCR) — the statutory body for child rights — to demand an inquiry into the incident and action against the teacher.
The 39-second video shows Tripta Tyagi, a teacher at Neha Public School, making “anti-Muslim remarks” while urging the boy’s classmates to take turns to slap him. The video was reportedly shot by the boy’s adult cousin, who was in the school at the time.
Circulating widely on social media, the video has sparked a political furore, with several leaders including Congress’s Rahul Gandhi and All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) chief Asaduddin Owaisi accusing Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath’s government of “spreading hate”.
As the row escalated, police in Muzaffarnagar lodged a non-cognizable report (NCR) Saturday against the teacher under sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult and breach of peace) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC).
A non-cognizable report is registered when police receive information about a non-cognizable offence, typically involving minor offences. In such cases, police can only take action after obtaining permission from a magistrate.
The boy’s father told the media that the teacher had “initiated a fight between the students” but the matter was “settled”. When asked how a settlement was arrived at, he said the child’s school fee had been returned and that he won’t go to that school anymore.
ThePrint reached Muzaffarnagar Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP) Sanjiv Suman but was told by his public relations office that he was attending a meeting. The office did, however, share details of the NCR lodged in connection with the incident.
Meanwhile, NCPCR has directed the Muzaffarnagar SSP to lodge an FIR against the teacher. Its chairperson Priyank Kanoongo has asked both Muzaffarnagar police and the district magistrate to conduct separate inquiries and submit their reports to the child rights body.
उक्त मामले में कलेक्टर व SSP मुज़फ़्फ़रनगर को पृथक पृथक नोटिस जारी किए गये हैं।
दोनों अधिकारियों को अलग-अलग जाँच करने व शिक्षक के विरुद्ध FIR दर्ज कर पीड़ित बालक व अन्य बच्चों को CWC के समक्ष प्रस्तुत करने तथा काउंसलिंग करवाए जाने के निर्देश दिये गये हैं। https://t.co/Vp85WKYuS6
— प्रियंक कानूनगो Priyank Kanoongo (@KanoongoPriyank) August 26, 2023
On Saturday, District Magistrate Aravind Mallappa Bangari told the media that a complaint had been lodged in the case and that “officials are working to maintain law and order at the spot”. He added that the boy is being counselled by the district Child Welfare Committee.
Meanwhile, district officials have told ThePrint that the school’s registration had lapsed and had not been renewed.
Shubham Shukla, Muzaffarnagar district Basic Shiksha Adhikari — the officer in charge of the district’s primary education department — told ThePrint that he had sought a report on the incident. He also said that although the school had been registered in 2019, they had yet to apply for a no-objection certificate essential to allow it to keep functioning.
“I had called them at 11 am today but they didn’t come. I had asked the block education officer to give me a report on the matter,” he said.
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Teacher admits ‘mistake’, claims video ‘edited’
In the video of the incident, Tripta Tyagi, who runs Neha Public School which is owned by her husband Ravindra Tyagi, is purportedly heard saying that “mothers of Mohammedan children leave (for their maternal homes), ruining their children’s education”.
She then urges a student to hit the child harder. “Kya tum maar rahe ho? Zor se maaro na (How are you hitting him? Hit him harder.),” she is heard saying in the video. She then asks “ab kiska number hai (Now, who’s next?)” before calling the next student forward.
Muzaffarnagar SP (City) Satyanarayan Prajapat had said Friday that the teacher asked other students to slap the boy since he could “not remember multiplication tables”.
“Some objectionable comments are also being made in the video. A probe was carried out in the comments and we spoke to the school and the principal,” he told the media, adding that district education officials have been informed.
In her defence, Tripta Tyagi claimed that the video doing the rounds on social media was “edited” but conceded that getting the child beaten up by fellow students was “a mistake”.
“They only kept the word Muslim and got the other line cut,” she told the media Saturday.
“I had said that all the Mohammedan mothers should not go to their parental house with their kids because the children’s exams are set to begin and their studies will suffer. This line was removed (from the video),” she claimed. Tyagi insisted that if teachers like her held such religious biases, “the school wouldn’t function”.
“If I had that kind of thinking, all parents would have taken their children out of the school,” she claimed.
‘Turning a school into a market of hate’
As the incident escalated, Muzaffarnagar Child Welfare Committee — the authority in charge of dealing with cases involving minors — warned against sharing the video.
Rajiv Kumar, head of the district committee, told the media that revealing the identity of a child in such cases was a violation of the Juvenile Justice Act, 2015. “Action is being initiated in the Muzaffarnagar incident,” he said.
Civil rights body Indian Civil Liberties Union (ICLU) too wrote to NCPCR and the Uttar Pradesh State Commission for Protection of Child Rights (UPSCPCR) demanding strict action against the teacher. “A classroom is not a place where such behaviour ought to be tolerated, much less encouraged,” read the complaint, a copy of which is with ThePrint.
Anas Tanwir, its founder, told ThePrint that they had demanded strict action. “We have heard that the school is running out of a house and doesn’t have registration,” he said.
In his tweet on X — formerly Twitter — Congress leader and former Amethi MP Rahul Gandhi reacted to the incident by saying that the “kerosene spread by the BJP” had lit a fire in “every corner of the country”.
“A teacher of a country cannot do worse than spreading poison of bias in the hearts of innocent children and turning a school into a market of hate,” Gandhi’s tweet, which was in Hindi, said.
मासूम बच्चों के मन में भेदभाव का ज़हर घोलना, स्कूल जैसे पवित्र स्थान को नफ़रत का बाज़ार बनाना – एक शिक्षक देश के लिए इससे बुरा कुछ नहीं कर सकता।
ये भाजपा का फैलाया वही केरोसिन है जिसने भारत के कोने-कोने में आग लगा रखी है।
बच्चे भारत का भविष्य हैं – उनको नफ़रत नहीं, हम सबको मिल…
— Rahul Gandhi (@RahulGandhi) August 25, 2023
AIMIM chief and Lok Sabha MP Owaisi called it a product of “the last nine years (of BJP rule)”.
“Who are these people who will vitiate the atmosphere over a father seeking justice for his kid? It is an indictment of Yogi Adityanath’s rule that people have no faith in due process,” Owaisi wrote in a post.
The video from Muzaffarnagar where a teacher is asking her students to slap a Muslim boy is a product of the last 9 years. The message being drilled into the minds of little children is that one can beat up & humiliate a Muslim without any repercussions.
The father of the…
— Asaduddin Owaisi (@asadowaisi) August 26, 2023
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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