The Muzaffarnagar police in Uttar Pradesh on August 28 registered a first information report (FIR) against Mohammed Zubair, co-founder of the fact-checking website Alt News, for allegedly disclosing the identity of a minor Muslim boy who was slapped by his classmates on the instructions of their schoolteacher in Khubbapur village.
The video of the slap incident had gone viral on social media, leading to a massive uproar across the country.
The case against Mr. Zubair was lodged on a complaint filed by Vishnu Dutt under Section 74 (prohibition on disclosure of identity of children) of the Juvenile Justice Act.
In the video, the teacher, Tripta Tyagi, could be allegedly heard telling the students to slap their classmate on the basis of his religious identity.
Ms. Tyagi was booked on Saturday under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt) and 504 (intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) on a complaint filed by the child’s father, who earlier called for mutual settlement. Both Sections pertain to non-cognisable offences, meaning that the police cannot arrest the accused without a warrant and need the court’s approval to start an investigation.
The Opposition parties described the school incident as a result of the ruling Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP) “agenda of hate”.
The Hindu reached out to Som Prakash Singh, the investigating officer of the case against Ms. Tyagi, to know about the development in the matter but did not receive response till the time of going to press.
