On Saturday, all four teachers at an upper primary government school in Bijnor district, Uttar Pradesh, including the acting principal, were transferred following a controversy. The issue arose after videos surfaced on social media showing a teacher, Tanveer Ayesha, wiping tilak from the foreheads of Hindu students. The alleged incident reportedly occurred at a school in Bhanera village within the Kiratpur block.
District Magistrate Ankit Kumar Agarwal ordered a formal inquiry in response to the videos and a three-member committee has been assigned to investigate the matter further.
“The committee report found the charges to be true. As a result, two teachers, Tanveer Ayesha and Usha, have been suspended. Another teacher, Mukhtar Ahmed Ansari, and the acting principal, Rajendra Kumar, have been denied their annual increment for one year. All four teachers have been transferred to another school. New teachers will be sent to the school soon,” said the DM, as per the report by the Indian Express.
The disciplinary actions against the teachers were due to accusations of religious bias. Ansari was criticized for allegedly telling Muslim students to pray in a mosque during school hours. Usha faced allegations of removing caps from Muslim students’ heads after the controversy over tilak surfaced.
“The teachers were spreading racialism within the school campus, which was a very dangerous sign of polluting young minds, and hence they faced the action,” said Basic Shiksha Adhikari Yogendra Kumar in Bijnor.
Meanwhile, the suspended teacher, Ayesha, has claimed that the charges against her are false, saying she never wiped off the tilak from students’ foreheads. “I will plead my innocence with senior officials to clear my service record. I have been teaching in government schools for the last 18 years, and my record is unblemished,” she said.
The trouble began when students complained about Ayesha’s behaviour after arriving at school with Tilak on August 24. On August 26, parents protested by entering the school and filing a complaint with the acting principal, Kumar, who was allegedly unresponsive. Following this, the District Magistrate formed an inquiry committee, which submitted its report on August 31.
