BJP IT Cell head Amit Malviya.
Credit: X/@amitmalviya
Amit Malviya, the head of the BJP IT cell, claimed that the Muzaffarnagar incident, in which a school teacher instructed students to slap a classmate, was not driven by communal factors.
“It is no doubt a terrible idea to ask fellow students to beat another but there is no communal angle here, as is being alleged by usual suspects,” the BJP functionary claimed.
Referring to the police statement, Malviya on X (formerly Twitter) said that the teacher had asked the students to hit the boy as a result of his inability to learn multiplication tables/doing homework.
The 39-second-long video shows Tripta Tyagi, the teacher in question, seated on her chair and asking students in the classroom to slap a fellow student belonging to a minority group. The incident is reported to have taken place in a school operating from a private residence in Khubbapur village.
Additionally, she made objectionable remarks about the community, leading to public outrage.
"When we... spoke to the school principal, it emerged that the teacher had declared that mothers of Mohammedan children who do not pay attention to their education, those children’s education is ruined. In this connection, action will be taken,” Hindustan Times quoted Satyanarayan Prajapat, the SP of Muzaffarnagar, as saying.
The teacher was heard making a connection between the child's education and his religion, as confirmed by the police.
In contrast, Malviya said that the "members of professional outrage brigade" were more concerned about the child's religious identity than his actual well-being.
Reacting to the incident, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi in a post in Hindi on X said, "Sowing the poison of discrimination in the minds of innocent children, turning a holy place like school into a market place of hatred – nothing worse a teacher can do for the country.
"This is the same kerosene spread by the BJP which has set every corner of India on fire.
"Children are the future of India - do not hate them, we all have to teach love together."