An Awful School Day Followed by Months of Nightmares

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.

- Deepak Lavania

MEERUT:

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 chipped bricks, he was trembling. His face was red and dried tears had formed streaks on his sunken face.

"He couldn't eat or speak for days. He kept asking, why did they hate me? It broke my heart," said his mother.

Eventually that day, the boy told his parents what had happened - that his teacher, Tripta Tyagi, had instructed his classmates to slap him one after the other, enraged that he had forgotten multiplication tables. She also allegedly made communally charged remarks against Muslims. The next day, video footage of the incident where Tyagi could be heard urging the children to "slap harder" went viral.

Initially reluctant to act due to societal pressures and fear, the boy's father filed a formal complaint on August 26. Later on the same day, a First Information Report (FIR) was lodged against Tyagi under Indian Penal Code Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult), and on September 7, the more serious 295A (deliberate acts to outrage religious feelings), as well as Section 75 of the Juvenile Justice Act, pertaining to cruelty to children, were added. Tyagi was never arrested.

By then, a tide of criticism had swept the country, prompting the Supreme Court to take up the case. The school, Neha Public School, was found running without permission and was shuttered. The top court rebuked the state government's initial handling of the probe, asked the administration to assume responsibility for the child, and last week, directed the Uttar Pradesh government to bear the full educational expenses of the child till he finishes school. HT visited the child and his family to take stock.