Bengaluru Sptember 3: ‘Go to Pakistan , this is not your country’ Manjula Devi, the teacher of a government school in Karnataka’s Shivamogga on Thursday allegedly told the two Muslim students and she was transferred following the incident and departmental inquiry initiated.
Shivamogga JD(S) leader A Nazrullah lodged a complaint against Manjula alleging that the teacher while scolding the two students told them to leave India and go to Pakistan.
As per the complaint, teacher Manjula Devi noticed two students arguing in front of the class. Devi then scolded the boys and allegedly said, “This is not your country”.
Nazrullah said, “We were shocked after the children told us about the incident. We filed a complaint with the Deputy Director of Public Instruction (DDPI), and the department took action against the teacher”.
The investigation was done by Block Education Officer B. Nagaraj, and the complaints of the other pupils in the class were supported.
According to reports, the teacher told the students, “This is not your nation; this is the country of Hindus. You should go to Pakistan. You are our slaves forever,” Nagraj said.
Following his complaint, Karnataka Department of School Education and Literacy transferred the teacher and also initiated a departmental inquiry against her.
The teacher, however, denied the charges and said that she only rebuked the students for not behaving properly in the class.
A week before the incident, a video of a teacher in Uttar Pradesh encouraging her students to slap their Muslim classmate for being unable to recite a multiplication table went viral. The incident took place in the Muzaffarnagar district at Neha Public School.
Based on the boy’s family’s complaint, a case was subsequently filed against the teacher on August 26 under Sections 323 (penalty for voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the Indian Penal Code.
Indian Muslims for Secular Democracy (IMSD) condemned the Uttar Pradesh school incident on Tuesday and asked that the teacher receive both a speedy trial and appropriate punishment.
A declaration from the IMSD, which styles itself as a secular democratic platform of Muslims in India, included actors Naseeruddin Shah, Shabana Azmi, and lyricist Javed Akhtar as signatories.