Indian teacher tells kids to slap Muslim student

NEW DELHI: A school teacher in India has subjected a seven-year-old Muslim student to degrading treatment inside a classroom, asking his classmates to slap him and asking for him to be evicted due to his religion, a video now viral on social media has revealed.

The video, which surfaced on Friday, showed Trapta Tyagi, the teacher at the school in Uttar Pradesh, India’s most populous state, making Islamophobic remarks in addition to encouraging other students to slap him harder.

A male voice in the background was heard agreeing with the teacher.

“I have declared that all Muslim children should go,” Tyagi is heard saying in the video.

“You are correct, it ruins the education,” the male is heard saying as the victim stands in front of the class, wailing and terrified.

India may have made it to the moon but millions of Muslims still don't have basic rights as Muslims are lynched in public sight.

In this school the teacher asks Hindu children to slap a Muslim child, even berating them if they don't slap hard enoughpic.twitter.com/ci0YVgDpl2

— muslim daily (@muslimdaily_) August 25, 2023

Muslims constitute approximately a fifth of the 235 million population of Uttar Pradesh.

The parents of the seven-year-old, Mohammad Altamash, told Al Jazeera that the incident took place on Thursday in Neha Public School in Kubbapur village, 30km (19 miles) from Muzaffarnagar town.

“Yesterday, my son came home crying,” Rubina, his mother, said. “He was traumatised. This is not how you treat kids.”

According to his father Mohammad Irshad, the teacher “asked them [classmates] to slap my son one by one”.

“The teacher justified her actions by saying my son did not memorise his lessons.

“My son is good at his studies. He takes tuitions. We fail to understand why the teacher treated him like this. It seems that the teacher is filled with hate,” the 42-year-old added.

Police in India have asked social media users not to share the video, prompting various users to remove it from their accounts.

A police officer said a case will be filed after recording the statement of the child and the parents.

The school in question has students from the Hindu and Muslim communities in the area.

As the video went viral, it sparked outrage on social media, with many pointing out the growing Islamophobia in schools.

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