Indian school children read in a classroom at a government school in Bagpath district in Uttar Pradesh. (Representative Image/SAJJAD HUSSAIN/AFP/Getty Images)A Muslim cleric in Aligarh district of Uttar Pradesh, who asked students from his community attending a state government school not to eat anything offered to them by the authorities there, was made to eat his own words.
According to a report in the Times of India, the cleric had made the announcement on Friday from a local mosque. The announcement was made after some students at a primary school in the area allegedly fell ill after consuming “deworming” tablets. However, the report does not mention that the illness was a result of the deworming exercise at the primary school.
A day after the announcement, only 81 of the 171 students came to school. Of these, only 20 had their mid-day meal. On asking why the students did not want to have the meal, the headmaster of the school found out about the cleric’s announcement and informed the village Pradhan, Devendra Singh about it.
“On Saturday, the cook told me that students were not ready to eat anything and when I asked him the reason, I was shocked to know that about the cleric’s announcement from the mosque,” he was quoted as saying.
The cleric apologised for the announcement after Singh contacted police.
The cleric, the daily’s report says, faced lot of criticism from parents and other members of the community for the announcement.
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