Following an incident where two Dalit girls were ‘forcibly stripped’ by their teachers in a government school in Hapur on 11 July, an FIR has been lodged by the police under various sections of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on Monday, 18 July.
The parents had alleged that their daughters were asked to take off their uniforms and give them to two other students, who were not in uniform, for a class photograph.
The FIR was lodged under sections 323 (punishment for voluntarily causing hurt), 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 166 (public servant disobeying the law, with intent to cause injury to any person), 505 (statements conducing to public mischief), 355 (assault or criminal force with intent to dishonour person, otherwise than on grave provocation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and under Section 3 (2) (v) (punishments for offenses of atrocities) of the SC/ST (Prevention of Atrocities) Act.
Prior to this, Vijay Sampla, chairman of the National Commission for Scheduled Castes (NCSC), asked for an 'action-taken report' from the Hapur police. It was only after this that the FIR had been filed.
Parents' Allegations
According to a The Indian Express report, one of the mothers said that the teachers had asked her daughter to take out her uniform and give it to another student for a photograph. The mother said, “When my daughter said she cannot do that, they beat her up and removed her uniform forcefully. I complained to the school but did not get an answer why this was done.”
One of the parents had raised the issue with Ravikant, the president of Shoshit Kranti Dal, who then complained to Basic Shiksha Adhikari, after which, both the teachers were suspended.
One of the teachers denied the allegations. The teacher told The Indian Express that when the photograph was being clicked, some students had asked others to lend their uniforms for the photo and that she was unaware that something of that sort had happened.
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