A principal and a para teacher were booked after the local unit of Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) alleged that “madrassa-type prayers” were being recited at a government higher primary school located in Faridpur, said Basic Shiksha Adhikari (BSA), Vinay Kumar, on Friday.
According to news reports, the students were reciting the prayer ‘Lab pe aati hai Dua’, an Urdu language prayer, in verse form authored by Muhammad Iqbal in 1902.
The poem has been set to music and sung in morning school assemblies almost universally in Urdu-medium schools in India for last several decades.
Police registered a case against the principal and a para teacher for conducting daily prayer with reciting religious texts.
The school principal, Nahid Siddiqui, has been suspended and a probe ordered against shiksha mitra (para teacher) Waziruddin, he said.
Some members of the local unit of VHP accused Siddiqui and Waziruddin of hurting the religious sentiments of the people in the Hindu-dominated area by reciting “madrassa-type prayers” in the school, he said.
The VHP members alleged that the accused were also trying to convert the students, the BSA said.
Police said a video of the incident has also come to the fore.
Based on the complaint letter of VHP’s city president Sompal Rathore, an FIR was registered against the principal and the shiksha mitra on Wednesday, the BSA said.
He said it is alleged that Waziruddin was conducting “madrassa-type prayers” for a long time at the behest of principal Siddiqui and the students who protested were threatened.
“On the basis of the complaint, Siddiqui has been suspended and a probe ordered against Waziruddin,” the BSA said.
(With PTI input)