Protests rocked the Bani area of Kathua district in Jammu and Kashmir after a student of Class 10 of a government school was beaten up by a teacher and principal for allegedly writing ‘Jai Shri Ram’ on his classroom board.

Officials said the student of Higher Secondary School, Bani, was admitted to the hospital for internal injuries after he was beaten up by his Urdu teacher Farooq Ahmed and principal Mohammad Hafiz on Friday for allegedly writing a religious slogan on the board, The Indian Express reported.

The principal and the teacher have been booked under Sections 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 342 (wrongful confinement), 504 (Intentional insult with intent to provoke breach of the peace), 506 (Criminal intimidation) of the Indian Penal Code (IPC) and Section 75 of Juvenile Justice Act (assault on child).

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Arjun Magotra, Station House Officer (SHO) at Bani, said an FIR has been registered against Farooq Ahmed and Mohammad Hafiz for assaulting a minor. “Investigation is going on at present and the accused will be arrested soon,” he said.

The FIR states that the incident took place on August 25, around noon, when the class 10 students were in the classroom. It states, “The boy had written Jai Shri Ram on the board. When Farooq came to the class and saw this, he, in front of the other students, took the child to the ground and beat him badly. He then took the boy to the principal’s room, and both of them locked the room and beat the child. They told him that if he did such a thing again, they would kill him. They then sent the staff and got the board washed with water. The boy had to be hospitalised.”

After the incident in Kathua, the Deputy Commissioner issued a notification saying a three-member committee had been formed to inquire into it. The members comprise the Sub Divisional Magistrate of Bani, the Deputy Chief Education Officer of Kathua and the principal of the government higher secondary school in Kharote.

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As the incident came to light, protests erupted in Bani, Basohli, Duggan and other places in Kathua district, The Times of India reported.

This incident comes amid widespread uproar over a video of a teacher at a school in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar making her students beat a fellow Muslim student. “I have declared jitne bhi Mohammedan (Muslim) bachhe hai…” the teacher was caught saying on camera while she called the rest of the class one after the other to take turns hitting the Muslim student.

“In the video, some objectionable comments were made. We spoke to the principal of the school and this fact came to light that the female teacher said that those Mohammedan students whose mother did not look after their studies, do not perform well. The person who recorded the video confirmed it, ” Muzaffarnagar Police said in a video.