Hyderabad: The Armoor police in Telangana’s Nizamabad district on Saturday booked the Hindi teacher of aprivate school for “promoting enmity between different groups” after she was allegedly found teaching Urdu during her Hindi class. The principal and the correspondent of the school — Bharat Chandra High School (Bhavishya Darshini School) in Perkit village – were also named in the FIR. “Enquiries revealed that Huma Hania, who was recently appointed as a Hindi teacher for classes 1 to 5, was teaching students the Urdu alphabet instead of the prescribed Hindi syllabus. This was confirmed by multiple students,” said P Satyanarayana, inspector,Armoor. Police alleged that the teacher also instructed students to greet one another with “Adaab” instead of “Namaste” during her classes.Based on complaints from Armoor tehsildar, local police booked Huma Hania (Hindi teacher), Ameer Khan(principal) and Mallaiah (correspondent) under Section 196(1)(b) (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc., and doing acts prejudicial to the maintenance of harmony) read with Section 3(5) of the BNS.A separate FIR was registered against local BJP workers who allegedly barged into the campus and assaulted the school staff over this issue. Cops said that BJP Armoor town president Mandula Balu, accompanied by party workers, including Nuthana Srinivas, arrived at the school on Saturday afternoon and objected to the alleged unauthorised teaching of Urdu. They allegedly assaulted the principalin the presence of police personnel.“We have booked the BJP workers for trespassing into the school and assaulting the principal. The case is under investigation,” said P Sai Chaitanya, commissioner of police, Nizamabad.He said Mandula Balu and others have been booked under Sections 329(4) (criminal trespass), 115(2) (voluntarily causing hurt), 118(1) (voluntarily causing grievous hurt by dangerous weapons or means), and 324(4) (mischief), read with Section 3(5)(common intention) of the BNS.No arrests have been made so far.Cops said that the incident came to light when they, along with the revenue inspector and the mandal education officer (in-charge), Armoor, visited the campus to inquire into allegations of Urdu being taught to primary school students withoutpermission from the competent authorities. The inspection was conducted on the instructions of the additional collector (revenue), Nizamabad, and the sub-collector, Armoor.During interrogation, police said the principal and correspondent admitted to having received complaints from parents and to directing the teacher to discontinue the Urdu lessons. However, the inquiry also found that they had allegedly torn pagescontaining Urdu notes from students’ notebooks after objections were raised by parents.“The destruction of the notes appears to have further fuelled public anger and ultimately led to the law-and-order situation at the school,” said the inspector.Battu Rajeshwar, the MEO who inspected the school, told TOI that the department had sent a report to the higher-ups as the school was teaching Urdu, which was beyond the curriculum and in violation of GO Ms No 1.The order outlines the rules for private educational institutions in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, mandating that they strictly adhere to the approved syllabus.“All primary students were taught Urdu in the school. They were also being taught to speak in Urdu in class and to greet each other in Urdu. This has raised concerns among parents,” said Rajeshwar, adding that the school is an English-medium institution and does not have permission to teach Urdu.The further course of action will be decided based on the findings of a thorough probe, he added.
