Srinagar
A private school Welkin Educational Trust in Sopore town of Baramulla district has rusticated a sister duo after a teacher found a mobile phone in one of the sister’s bag.
But the school’s justification for its decision to discharge the sisters, 11-year-old Malaika and seven-year-old Eman Dar, has nothing to do with the mobile, but what the school claims was use of “abusive language against the school administration and a teacher” by their mother.
The parents of the sister duo claim that Malaika and Eman were humiliated in front of other students for merely carrying a mobile phone. According to the parents, both the sisters were asked by the school administration not to come to school. The teachers even raised questions over their “upbringing”, Indian Express reported.
While the mother of the sister duo claims that her older daughter Malaika, a class 7 student, had taken the phone mistakenly to school and even the SIM was not activated, she accused school administration and teachers of suing abusive language against her daughter.
Uzma said: “I apologized and assured the school administration that such action will not be repeated in future. The teachers harassed my children.”
She said that after intervention of few elders, they sent their children to school. “Instead of taking them to class, both my daughters were humiliated. My younger daughter was beaten and kept confined in a separate room and teacher also didn’t allow them to eat their tiffin. Once my children reached home in the evening, I couldn’t bear it when my daughters started crying and narrated how they were humiliated by teachers and administrators of the school. In a fit of rage I called the teacher of my younger daughter and used abusive language and I am very ashamed for that. But, if my older daughter had committed some sin what was the fault of my younger daughter,” she told the Indian Express, adding that thereafter, the school administration asked her children “not to show their face in the school again”.
Run by a businessman, Welkin Educational Trust has been in the news before. In 2012, a teacher committed suicide in the school after she was allegedly humiliated by the school administrators. Recently a parent tried to lodge a complaint at Sopore police station after she was “humiliated and harassed” by the school administration. The school administration declined to comment on this issue.
Education Minister, Altaf Bukhari has said that he would ensure that the sisters are taken back by the school. “Let them first join the school that is my priority as I am custodian of all the school children,” he said, adding that an inquiry will follow afterwards.
Director School Education, Ghulam Nabi Yatoo said that he had constituted a committee headed by an upright officer. “The report will be submitted very soon. I am hopeful this issue will get resolved.”
