UP teacher booked in student slapping case; Opposition slams BJP’s ‘hatred politics’

New Delhi, August 26

With outrage pouring in from different quarters, including political parties, the UP Police in Muzaffarnagar today registered an FIR against a private school teacher accused of making communal comments and ordering her students to slap a Muslim classmate for not doing his homework.

According to officials, the school was also served a notice by the Education Department. The teacher, Trapti Tyagi, was booked a day after a video purportedly showed her asking the students to slap the Class II boy at the school in Khubbapur village and also making a communal remark.

The video elicited strong words from several political leaders with the National Commission for Protection of Child Rights demanding action against the teacher. The police registered an FIR against Tyagi under Sections 323 and 504 of the IPC, both bailable offences.

In her defence, Tyagi claimed the video was shot by one of the boy’s uncles and had been tampered with to stoke communal tensions. She said though it was wrong on her part to get a student slapped by his classmates, she maintained she did so as she was differently abled and was unable to stand up and reach the student, who had not done his assignment.

Basic Shiksha Adhikari of Muzaffarnagar Shubham Shukla said a show-cause notice had been issued to the school management through the secretary of the management committee, Ravinder Tyagi. The school has been asked to furnish its response by August 28 as to why its recognition should not be cancelled. The issue, meanwhile, snowballed into a slugfest between the BJP and opposition parties, many of which alleged it was the ruling regime’s “politics of hate” that prepared the ground for such an incident to happen.

Congress leader Rahul Gandhi had on Friday, in an X post, condemned the incident saying a teacher could “do no worse for the country” as he accused the BJP of “filling people’s minds with poison”. “Sowing the poison of discrimination in the minds of innocent children, turning a holy place like a school into a marketplace 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 — we all have to teach them love, not hatred,” he said.

Congress president Mallikarjun Kharge slammed the BJP for its “divisive thinking” and said “such incidents tarnish our global image”.

The Samajwadi Party alleged that it was the “politics of hate” of BJP and RSS, which had brought the country to such a pass where a teacher could ask her students to slap a boy from a minority community over his religion. SP chief Akhilesh Yadav, in a post on X, demanded the teacher be sacked immediately, and called her a “blot on teacher society”. But, BJP spokesperson Harishchandra Srivastava termed SP chief’s post on X a “political agenda”.

Handicapped, Video tampered with: Accused

In her defence, Trapti Tyagi claimed the video was shot by one of the Class II boy’s uncles and had been “tampered with” to stoke communal tension. She said though it was wrong on her part to get a student slapped by his classmates, she maintained she did so as she was differently abled and was unable to stand up and reach the student, who had not done his assignment.”