Damoh (Madhya Pradesh): School education minister Inder Singh Parmar said working of Damoh district education officer had raised doubts. Damoh school hijab case should be investigated properly, he told mediapersons here on Tuesday.
“DEO gave wrong information about school. He should have conducted regular inspection of school. When incident came to light, DEO gave a clean chit to school in his report. We are taking action against DEO,” Parmar added.
The minister has also questioned the role of Damoh collector. To a query, Parmar said statements of collector were unclear. “I feel it is not a matter of school rules but a matter of spreading hatred in the society,” he remarked.
On May 31, posters of toppers from a private school in Damoh went viral on social media wherein all the girl students including Hindus and Jains were seen wearing head scarf, a move that aroused outrage.
On Tuesday, some people threw ink on face of Damoh district education officer SK Mishra in the office premises while he was leaving for some place in his car. A video of the incident also surfaced in which some people were seen stopping car and throwing ink on him.
After the incident, Mishra said, "There were supicious type of people who threw ink. They are locals. They were speaking about Ganga Jamuna School issue (hijab controversy where purported posters of girls wearing Hijab came to light). I have neither been given an investigation nor have I filed a report in this regard."
"It has been handed over to a high-power committee. I saw a few faces among them who had some outstanding bills. So, they might have done this out of revenge. The bills pertained to the maintenance and repair of some schools," he added.
Teachers at collectorate
On Tuesday, teachers of Ganga Jamuna School reached collector office and showed papers to the administration. They said they had a love marriage and converted to Islam without any pressure.
Act endorsed
A section of school students and parents claimed that girls were told to wear hijab while boys were told not to wear kalawa (puja thread) on their wrists. A father of one of the students told media that when they objected to school’s dress code, they were told to wear hijab at gate before entering the school.
SIT formed
Damoh SP Rakesh Kumar Singh told Free Press that the collector had formed special investigation team, which had begun investigation. He added that SIT would investigate the financial connection and religious conversion issue.
