New Delhi: Twenty days after students in a school in Jammu and Kashmir’s Batote allegedly attacked a teacher, the situation in the region remains tense, the Indian Express reported. The Class 10 teacher was reportedly beaten up after he listed the “benefits” of the Centre’s move to read down Article 370 of the constitution.
“The students may have thrown him off the first floor, killed him,” another teacher told the newspaper.
CISF jawans are now stationed at the school, and authorities have reportedly said that the teacher won’t be posted back to the school.
The school authorities have said they don’t know how the violence broke out. Students allege that the teacher made derogatory comments about a particular community, but he says he was only answering students’ questions. Fourteen students have been rusticated after the violence, and the teacher has been attached with the office of the chief education officer, Ramban.
Batote has a population of about 5,000, and an equal number of Hindus and Muslims. The violence and protests at the school have reportedly divided the town along religious lines. “Some people want to disturb the communal amity by trying to blow the tiff out of proportion,” a local businessman told the Indian Express.
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Arshad Kazmi, a local Communist leader, added, “While the two communities appear normal in their daily dealings, they now look at each other with suspicion.”
Sources told the newspaper that both the students and the teacher had submitted written apologies to the school authorities, promising not to repeat their actions. Someone in the district administration said that teachers in the school had played a role in amplifying tensions.
While no FIR has been filed yet, Ramban district deputy commissioner Nazim Zai Khan set up a three-member inquiry commission to look into the matter. The members are additional district development commissioner, Ramban, Nawab Din; tehsildar (Batote) Pardeep Kumar; and chief education officer, Ramban, Abdul Hamid Fani.
Batote is along the Jammu-Srinagar highway, which is still witnessing strict curbs on movement.