Tripta Tyagi, the teacher at Neha Public School in Muzaffarnagar, Uttar Pradesh, in Indian, who was heard in a viral video asking other children to slap a muslim student says she did so because she was disabled and could not get up to hit the child herself.
The teacher who defended herself in a separate video that later surfaced on social media, claimed that her act did not have any religious bias and that the video was tampered with and only a portion of what she said was shown in it.
“I made a mistake by getting the child beaten up by the students. I am handicapped and could not get up.
“There was pressure from the child’s parents to be strict with him. The child’s cousin was sitting in the class. The video was recorded by him which was later distorted,” she said.
Ms Tyagi could be seen in the video encouraging students to take turns to hit the Muslim boy had sparked global outrage and conversation on social media as many called for strict action against her.
She was heard saying in the video , “jor se maaro naa… (Why don’t you hit him harder?)” as the child stands frozen in front of the class and his classmates walk up to him one by one to slap him across the face.
The video, which surfaced on Friday, showed Tyagi asking for the Muslim student to be evicted due to his religion.
A male voice could be heard in the background agreeing with the teacher.
“I have declared that all Muslim children should go,” Tyagi was also heard saying in the video.
“You are correct, it ruins the education,” the male is heard saying as the victim stands in front of the class, wailing and terrified.
The parents of the seven-year-old, Mohammad Altamash, told Al Jazeera that the incident took place on Thursday in Neha Public School in Kubbapur village, 30km (19 miles) from Muzaffarnagar town.
“Yesterday, my son came home crying,” Rubina, his mother, said. “He was traumatised. This is not how you treat kids.”
According to his father Mohammad Irshad, the teacher “asked them [classmates] to slap my son one by one”.
“The teacher justified her actions by saying my son did not memorise his lessons.
“My son is good at his studies. He takes tuition. We fail to understand why the teacher treated him like this. It seems that the teacher is filled with hate,” the 42-year-old added.
Police in India have asked social media users not to share the video, prompting various users to remove it from their accounts.
Irshad, a farmer, said that the ill-treatment of his son was the result of “hate that is being spread against Muslims in the country”, illustrated by the teacher’s comments heard in the video.
Rubina added that the teacher reportedly had a habit of getting students slapped by their classmates. She added that just a few days ago, another student from their family was subjected to similar treatment after he failed to memorise his lessons.
A police officer said a case will be filed after recording the statement of the child and the parents.
The school in question has students from the Hindu and Muslim communities in the area.
Irshad said that, although the teacher accepted her mistake and apologised for her behaviour, he will move his son to a different school.
“She said she will never treat her students badly again,” he said. “But this is not the environment where I want my son to get an education and grow up in.”
