It all started with a thrashing for wearing lipstick in class. It set off a chain of events that began with a show of solidarity on Facebook and ended with a school being burnt down, putting an entire town on the edge.
St. Joseph’s Higher Secondary School, a well-known Catholic church-run school in Manipur’s Chandel district, was burnt down on the night of April 25. The police have arrested two Kuki Students’ Organisation functionaries in connection with the incident.
“The school authorities had recently suspended six students,” said K Jayanta Kumar, Inspector General of Manipur police. “KSO wanted them to revoke the suspension, but the school authorities refused to do so, so it seems they burnt down the school.”
The police found copies of the “ultimatum” issued by the student organisation pasted on the school’s gate, said Kumar.
‘Abusive and unbecoming’
The six students, enrolled in class 9, were allegedly suspended for their “abusive and unbecoming” posts and comments online about the teacher who had beaten their classmate, the principal of the school said in an interview to a local cable news channel.
The student who had written the post against the teacher was suspended for six months while the other five who had commented on the post were proscribed for a month each from school. The student who was originally punished in the classroom was not part of this.
The principal, a Christian priest, blamed the episode on “the misuse of social media”.
“Yes, corporal punishment was given, but they used the wrong channel for redressal of their grievance,” said the priest. “She should have come to me or my assistant, but she went to [social media] and defamed my teachers.”
Suspension – and intervention
After the students were suspended for their alleged online transgression, one of the students – the one who wrote the Facebook post – reportedly approached the local branch of the Kuki Students’ Organisation, which wields considerable influence in the area.
The student outfit demanded that the school authorities should revise its decision and reinstate the students.