Faridabad education officer retracts letter flagging ‘love jihad’ by students, cites ‘clerical error’

Speaking to The Indian Express, Singla said, “There is no instance of love jihad in the district as alleged and the letter was issued due to a clerical oversight.”

The letter, which was widely shared on social media, had stated that a complaint in this

regard has been received by the district education officer and threatened “departmental action” if such a complaint is again received against any school.

However, Singla said, “The complainant had filed a similar complaint earlier, before my tenure, with the same content. This time, he put it on the CM Window (portal) to again grab attention, and while issuing the letter, my clerical staff typed the allegations and heading verbatim from the complaint. I had missed spotting the same. The district does not see any such issue as alleged, there is no question of it. The odd cases of students skipping school has nothing to do with this.”

Directing the schools to create WhatsApp groups with parents to mark daily attendance, the letter had stated, “You are directed that WhatsApp groups be created with mobile numbers of parents/guardians of all students of every class, and within half-an-hour of the start of the school period, attendance of students present in the class be marked and the list of absent students be shared in the WhatsApp group of parents of students studying in that class.”

On Thursday, the department issued a clarification, stating that it has “cancelled” the letter. It maintained that the letter was issued following a complaint received on the Haryana CM Window portal and the department had not received any complaint on the matter.

“A complaint was received on the CM Window portal of the office of the District Education Officer, Faridabad, the subject of which was ‘Students of various government and private schools of Faridabad district are polluting the infrastructure and environment by missing school hours and indulging in anti-social activities and love jihad in various parks’, due to which a letter was issued by this office… for sending Action Taken Report/reply on the CM Window portal, but no complaint related to the above subject has been received in the Education Department, Faridabad. Therefore, the letter issued… has been cancelled with immediate effect,” the department said in a press note.

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