Hyderabad, July 16 (IANS) A controversy erupted at a private school in Hyderabad following an allegation that a Hindu student of Class 2 was assigned Islamic religious verses as homework.

The student was asked to recite ‘Kalima’ and ‘Sura Fatiha’. The incident occurred at a school in the Saidabad area.

The parents of the student confronted the school management, questioning the appropriateness of such an act within an academic environment.

The parents lodged their protest with the management of ‘Success’ school and demanded action against the teacher involved.

Following the protest, the school management sacked the teacher. She has been permanently disqualified from applying for employment in future in the ‘Success’ group of educational institutions.

According to the parents, the teacher had given the homework on July 15. “Read Sura Fatiha”, mentioned in the school diary under the subject ‘Deeniyath’. Earlier on July 11, the teacher had written ‘Read Kalima’, but the same was struck off by the teacher, apparently after realising that the subject did not apply to the non-Muslim student.

According to the school management, almost all the students in the school are Muslims, and they have the subject of ‘Deeniyath’ or Islamic teaching. However, the subject is not taught to non-Muslim students.

‘Kalima’ is the Islamic declaration of faith and testimony, while ‘Surah Fatiha’ is the first chapter of the Holy Quran.

The management clarified that it was an inadvertent mistake, but they still took the action of terminating the services of the teacher.

Meanwhile, independent MLA T. Raja Singh Lodh condemned the incident. He said it was deeply shameful that a Class 2 student was allegedly pressured by the school management to recite the Kalma.

“This is not the first such case in Telangana; there have been several similar incidents in the past. Yesterday, when the parents of the child went to the school and questioned the management about how they could pressure their Hindu child to recite the Kalma, the school authorities had no answer,” he said

He demanded that Chief Minister Revanth Reddy take action against schools which are forcing Hindu children to recite ‘Kalma’.

The former BJP MLA questioned the silence of AIMIM chief and Hyderabad MP Asaduddin Owaisi on the issue.

–IANS

ms/dpb