In a disturbing development related to the hurt Hindu sensitivities in a Christian school in Mangaluru, Karnataka, the family of the Class 7 student — who had objected to her teacher’s act of referring to deities as false gods — has alleged they are now receiving threats. They say photos of the student’s family members have gone viral on social media while they have received threat calls even from phone numbers registered abroad.
Family approaches police
The family reported the threats to the police on Tuesday, 20 February. The student’s mother, a teacher by profession too, as is the alleged offender, complained to the Kankanadi Police Station in Mangaluru. According to the complaint, miscreants picked the photographs of the family from their social media handles and released them with obscene captions on different platforms.
The student’s family received a few threatening calls from Gulf countries — Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and Qatar — they alleged in the police complaint. The callers blamed the victim’s family to be the cause of the dispute, warning them of dire consequences.
On 8 February, at St Gerosa English HR Primary School in Mangaluru, a teacher referred to the Ramayana and Mahabharata as “imaginary” tales while teaching the students of Class 7. The now-suspended teacher raised issues like the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat in 2002, including incidents like the rape of Bilkis Bano, allegedly in a distorted manner during her lecture. The teacher also made indecent remarks about Prime Minister Narendra Modi.
In a statement issued following the furore in Hindu circles, the school pleaded “not guilty”.
When the student and several parents complained, a demonstration was held in front of the school under the leadership of local BJP MLA Bharat Shetty. The protesters alleged a conspiracy to brainwash children at the school.
Pro-Hindu groups say such things happen in the said school every year. During their demonstration on 11 February, Shetty appealed to Hindu families to “reconsider enrolling their children in schools run by Christian missionaries”.
Workers of the Vishwa Hindu Parishad and Bajrang Dal participated in the demonstration too. Later, the police registered a case against the BJP MLA and detained several demonstrators yesterday.