The principal of Somaiya school in Mumbai Parveen Sheikh has been asked to resign allegedly for his posts on social media platform X on Palestine and over the Israel-Hamas war, reports The Indian Express.
Sheikh has been associated with the school for 12 years and became its principal seven years ago.
The action came in the aftermath of a report published by a website named OpIndia, which has often been accused of spreading misinformation and hate speech, which said that her posts were pro-Palestine and were sympathetic to Hamas.
The title of the OpIndia report read: ‘Special liking for Hamas, Umar Khalid, ‘liking’ anti-Hindu Tweets and abusing PM Modi: Meet Parveen Shaikh, Principal of prestigious Somaiya School, Mumbai’.
Speaking to IE, Sheikh said that she was asked by the management on April 26 that her association with the institution was “no longer tenable” and she was asked to resign.
“I continued to work over the following days, but there was covert and overt pressure from management representatives to coerce me into resigning,” she said.
“I live in democratic India; I hold the principle of freedom of speech in high regard as it is a cornerstone of democracy. It is unimaginable that my expression would provoke such a malicious response, furthering their biased agenda,” she said.
She added that she wouldn’t tender her resignation as she gave it all for the school.
Sheikh further said that she came to know about the report by OpIndia from the school’s management, and also claimed that she was not contacted by the website before publishing the report.