North body school head suspended for ‘dividing students’
NORTH DELHI MAYOR SAID SOCIAL DIVIDE ON THE BASIS OF CASTE, COMMUNITY OR RELIGION WOULD NOT BE TOLERATED AT NORTH CORPORATION SCHOOLS
NEW DELHI: The North Delhi Municipal Corporation Wednesday suspended the head of a civicrun primary school in Wazirabad and initiated penalty proceedings against him for segregating students into different sections on religious grounds.
The action was taken following a report in The Indian Express, which stated students belonging Hindu and Muslim communities were put in different sections at the school.
Confirming the development, North Delhi mayor Adesh Gupta said action has been taken against CB Singh Sehrawat, the head of the boys’ school. “The school in-charge of the North DMC primary school in Wazirabad has been suspended and penalty proceedings have been initiated against him as he was found guilty in the preliminary probe,” Gupta said.
He also said that social divide on the basis of caste, community or religion would not be tolerated at North corporation schools.
Union home resource development (HRD) ministry has asked for a report on the allegations. “We haven’t received any complaint yet but have read about it in the media. I have asked for a report,” HRD minister Prakash Javadekar told reporters.
Delhi Education minister Manish Sisodia too ordered a probe into the matter and sought a report pertaining to the issue by Friday.
“Segregation of students on the basis of religion at a school governed by Bjp-ruled MCD is the biggest conspiracy against the Constitution. I have ordered the director of education to probe the matter and submit a report by Friday,” Sisodia tweeted.
Sehrawat, who was appointed the head of the school in July, was found guilty of segregating students into different sections on the basis of their religion. How- ever, he denied doing that “deliberately”.
“I did not assign the sections to students on the basis of their religion. I consulted my teachers when I joined the school and they only told me that there were fights among students over several things, including food habits. I was told that some vegetarian students did not like to sit with non-vegetarian students. So, the sections were divided,” he said.
However, teachers at the school said Sehrawat had not consulted them before taking the decision.
“He has been taking unilateral decisions ever since he took over as the school in-charge. We were neither told nor consulted before this segregation. We were just asked to follow the order,” said a teacher, who wished to remain anonymous.
The schools run under the three civic bodies – north, east and south—offer education up to class 5 across the national capital.
Meanwhile, the Delhi Commission for Protection of Child Rights (DCPCR) also issued a notice to the school on the allegations and sought a reply by October 25.
“The school in-charge was the reason for occurrence of this situation where shuffling happened in a manner that students of different religions are assigned different sections,” the commission said in the notice.
DCPCR served the notice to the school after Aam Aadmi Party’s northeast parliamentary constituency in-charge, Dilip Pandey, registered a complaint with the commission on the issue.