UP school triggers row with question on 'terrorism' targeting Indian Muslims

A school in Uttar Pradesh's Baharaich town triggered controversy after its Hindi paper for 9th standard was found to have a question on ''Indian Muslim Terrorism''. This comes after the controversial incident of Uttar Pradesh teacher directing the students of her class to slap a Muslim student invoked nationwide outrage.

As the Muslim community members protested the language of the paper and demanded action against the school, the latter tendered an apology and said that the word 'Muslim' was inadvertently included in the question paper. The school management also sacked the Hindi teacher, who had prepared the question paper, and cancelled the examination. 

The question was part of a comprehension exercise in Hindi on terrorism. one of the sentences in the paragraph said ''yeh ek vicharsheelata ki pranali hai jisme Bharatiya Muslim atankvad, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Al Qaeda, Taliban aur Islamic rajniti ke vibhinna sangathan shamil hain'' (Its part of an ideology in which Indian Muslim terrorism, LeT, Al Quaida, Taliban and various organisations of Islamic politics are included).

The paragraph also said that the government of India must also be prepared for a war with Pakistan besides holding bilateral negotiations on the issue of Jammu & Kashmir.

Barely a month back a viral video showed a teacher asking the students to slap an eight year old Muslim student. The incident took place at a private school in Khubbapur village in Muzaffarnagar district.

The incident had triggered a massive outrage with the opposition leaders, including former Congress president Rahul Gandhi, Congress general secretary Priyanka Gandhi Vadra, AIMIM chief Asauddin Owaisi and Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav sharply condemning the incident and attributed the same to attempts to create a poisonous environment in the country, apparently referring to the BJP.