A group of men led by a Bharatiya Janata Party leader on Saturday allegedly assaulted the principal of a private school in Telangana’s Nizamabad district over claims that he undertook unauthorised Urdu lessons for a class of 25 students, The Indian Express reported.The police registered two first information reports following the incident. One was filed against BJP’s Armur town chief Mandula Balu and others for allegedly trespassing the school premises and assaulting the teacher. The second case named principal Ameer Khan, the school’s administrative official Mallaiah and teacher Huma Hania for the allegedly unauthorised classes, The Times of India reported.No arrests had been made because a mandal education official’s findings in the matter were awaited, an unidentified police officer told The Hindu.A Muslim Urdu teacher was slapped by a BJP leader in Telangana for teaching Urdu to students, despite Urdu being an officially recognized second language in the state. The incident took place in the presence of Telangana Police. Instead of taking immediate action against the… pic.twitter.com/4nECGucpIT— Mohammed Zubair (@zoo_bear) June 28, 2026
The incident took place on Saturday at Bharat Chandra High School in Perkit village of Armur mandal. A group of men including BJP workers led by Balu entered the school and allegedly assaulted the principal in the presence of the police, The Hindu reported.The district authorities ordered an inquiry into the alleged unauthorised teaching of Urdu. The inquiry was conducted by the revenue inspector, the mandal education officer and the police, The Times of India reported.The team questioned students, staff, parents and the school management.The inquiry found that Hania, who had been appointed to teach Hindi to students between Class 1 and Class 5 had allegedly been teaching Urdu during Hindi lessons without an authorisation, Inspector P Satyanarayana told The Times of India.Satyanarayana was quoted as saying that several students confirmed that Urdu had been taught during the classes and that the principal and correspondent acknowledged receiving complaints from parents before directing the teacher to stop the lessons.The police also alleged that Urdu notes in students’ exercise books had been torn out by the school management after parents objected, leading to a law and order situation.The principal told The Indian Express that he is an English teacher and that the Urdu classes were conducted by another educator on the instructions of the school management after requests from parents of Muslim students, who make up 25% of the students in the school.He told the newspaper that the school management board was “headed by Hindu persons who decided that Urdu can be taught as a second language in the school”.“At the beginning of the school year, in June, two days of Urdu classes were held, and when parents of Hindu students opposed this, we decided not to conduct these classes anymore,” Khan said.However, members of the BJP alleged that the school had been teaching Namaz and the Kalima, the Islamic declaration of faith, in school, The Indian Express reported.The school management denied this claim.“There was no question of teaching any religious text,” an official who filed a complaint about the assault said. “The students were being taught the Urdu alphabet for two days.”Balu said that he had assaulted the principal, alleging that he was “sure that he was trying to force Hindu students to take up Islam”.Separately, fact-checker Mohammed Zubair said on social media that his post about the incident had been flagged for removal after Hyderabad Police allegedly sent a request to the platform X, claiming that it violated the law.Edited by Nachiket Deuskar.
