Missing letter leads to headmistress’s suspension after exam question ‘hurts religious sentiment’ in Chhattisgarh

Soon, the question paper surfaced on social media, and right-wing groups, including Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) and Bajrang Dal, gave a written complaint to the Collector and Superintendent of Police (SP) of Mahasamund district seeking action.

SP Prabhat Kumar said an FIR was registered in the matter last week against unknown persons under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita section 299 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs). The section is non-bailable.

An inquiry was also initiated by the District Education Officer, Himanshu Bhartiya, in Raipur. A five member committee was formed to investigate the complaint.

In press statement, the education officer said, “Ram is a revered deity of the Hindu religion, and including ‘Ram’ as an option [for the answer] has hurt religious sentiments.”

In the inquiry, it came to fore that the paper was set by the headmistress of a government primary school at Nakti in Tilda Block of Raipur. She was subsequently suspended on Saturday.

Additionally, proceedings are underway to terminate the services of the paper moderator, who was an assistant teacher on contractual basis.

“The headmistress admitted her mistake in her clarification, stating that the word ‘Ram’ (RAM) was typed instead of ‘Ramu’ (RAMU) in one of the options. She stated that it was typed due to ignorance/oversight and that she missed the letter ‘U’. Even upon re-evaluation, the error was not noticed. She stated that her intention was never to hurt religious sentiments or insult any religion/community. The word was included by mistake during the paper setting, and she expressed deep regret and apologised for the same,” the statement said.

“Similarly…, [the] Assistant Teacher (Contractual), mentioned in her clarification that she had to prepare one set of questions from two sets of class 4 English papers received from the District Education Office. She left the four multiple-choice options as they were and failed to properly notice the option ‘Ram’ due to an oversight. She stated it was an unintentional mistake, for which she sought forgiveness, promising not to repeat such an error in the future and clarifying she had no intent to hurt religious sentiments,” it added.

The District Education Officer has also issued warning letters to the Block Education Officer of Tilda for allegedly failing to select an appropriately experienced teacher, and to the principal of the school for allegedly failing to select a proper moderator.