Will teacher be prosecuted or culture of 'hate' allowed to flourish: Kapil Sibal on UP school viral video

Reacting to a viral video of a Uttar Pradesh teacher asking her students to slap a boy from a minority community, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal wondered whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will condemn this publicly and the teacher be prosecuted or the culture of "hate" be allowed to flourish.

New Delhi:After a video of a Uttar Pradesh teacher asking her students to slap a Muslim boy went viral, Rajya Sabha MP Kapil Sibal asked whether Prime Minister Narendra Modi will condemn this publicly and the teacher be prosecuted or the culture of "hate" be allowed to flourish.

The video showed the school teacher asking her students to slap a boy from what she is heard referring to as "Mohammaden" community. The woman was seen passing objectionable remarks against the community. The act in the viral video was condemned by Congress leaders Rahul Gandhi and Priyanka Gandhi Vadra.

In the video, the teacher was seen asking her students of class 2 of a private school in Khubbapur village which falls under Mansurpur police station to hit the hapless child.

In a post on X (formerly known as Twitter), Sibal slammed it as "culture of hate". "A teacher of a private school in Uttar Pradesh's Muzaffarnagar asked Hindu students to beat up a Muslim student in the classroom."

"If true, will Yogi ji (Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath) speak up? Will Modi ji condemn this publicly? Will the teacher be prosecuted? Or will the culture of 'hate' be allowed to flourish?" Sibal wondered.

Kapil Sibal had served as a Union minister during UPA I and II. He quit the Congress in May last year. He was elected to the Rajya Sabha as an Independent member with the Samajwadi Party's support. He has recently floated a non-electoral platform 'Insaaf', which he said was aimed at fighting injustice.

BSP MP Danish Ali who has also condemned the incident, subscribed to the views of Sibal and termed it as a hate crime.

"Last week, a teacher lost his job in India for asking his students to vote for educated leaders. Now, a teacher in Uttar Pradesh is let off with an apology after she got her class to hit a student because he was a Muslim. This is hate crime. Where is WCD (women and child development) minister, where is Yogi's bulldozer?"

He wrote in a post in X.

Circle Officer Ravishankar said the viral video was examined. "Prima facie, it seems the child was beaten up for not completing his school work. Some objectionable comments can also be heard in the video. We are looking into the matter and further action will be taken," he said, on Friday.

According to Basic Shiksha Adhikari Shubham Shukla, apart from the students, two people are also seen in the video, one of whom is the teacher, while efforts are on to identify the other person.

"Action will be initiated against both the persons and also against the school management," Shukla said.

On the religious identity of the victim child and those who hit him, Shukla maintained that it is under probe. "As of now, we cannot say it as this is a matter of investigation. Our team will probe this, and the police have also taken cognisance of this case," he said. (with PTI inputs)