An awful school day followed by months of nightmares

Roughly 28 km away from Muzaffarnagar town in Uttar Pradesh is the village where the boy and his family of five live.

He had a routine. Every morning at 7am, he left his village home for his school, 1km away. At 1pm in the afternoon, he would return and then spend the rest of the day in the modest two-room unfinished brick house, taking a break to play with his friends in the evening.

After the slapping incident, the boy’s parents moved him to a private school in Muzaffarnagar city. (Deepak Lavania/HTphoto)

But August 23, 2023 was different. That afternoon, as the seven-year-old Muslim boy pushed past the weathered wooden gates into a room with dabs of cement slapped on