A Kolkata school teacher has been suspended and a police case has been registered against her because she forced a student to remove his sandalwood tilak from his forehead, chief minister Suvendu Adhikari announced on Friday.
“A teacher from the Holy Mission English Medium School has been suspended for repeatedly forcing a boy to wash off his sandalwood tilak. An FIR (first information report) has also been lodged against the teacher,” Adhikari said.
The school, established 25 years ago, is located in New Alipore, south Kolkata. It is affiliated to the West Bengal Board of Secondary Education and has around 1200 students and 60 teachers.
S Chowdhury, the school’s secretary, told HT that the action was taken after the institution received a notice from the district inspector (DI) of schools on Thursday following a complaint lodged by a Class 5 student.
“The teacher was asked to explain the matter before the school’s disciplinary committee,” he said.
According to the teacher, the boy was asked to wash his face on Wednesday because the tilak had smudged in the heat and spread across his forehead. “The boy possibly misconstrued this,” Chowdhury said.
{{/usCountry}}According to the teacher, the boy was asked to wash his face on Wednesday because the tilak had smudged in the heat and spread across his forehead. “The boy possibly misconstrued this,” Chowdhury said.
{{/usCountry}}“The teacher has been suspended until the matter is decided by the school management committee. Around 80 % of our students are non-Bengalis, and the majority are Hindus. Many of them come to school with tilaks. We never stopped anyone from following any religious custom,” Chowdhury said.
The official, however, underlined that neither the government nor the police had informed the school that an FIR had been lodged. “We came to know about this when we saw the video of the chief minister’s press conference,” Chowdhury said.
At the press conference, Adhikari also announced that a state employee at Bikash Bhawan in Salt Lake, Paromita Sen, had been suspended for an objectionable social media post about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
“Nobody can post such things about the Prime Minister. These matters will be dealt with strictly,” he said.