MANGALURU: A school in Mangaluru reportedly asked students to remove raakhi threads, which were tied by their siblings on the occasion of Raksha Bandhan, stoking controversy on Thursday.
Some parents and pro-Hindu groups on Friday staged a protest against schoolteachers and accused them of throwing raakhis into the dustbin. They took the school management to task, seeking explanation and apology from teachers. Police were summoned to the school premises when the situation looked tense.
Fr Santhosh Lobo, correspondent of Infant Mary English Medium School in Katipalla, where the incident took place, said: “Some (staffers) created confusion by behaving irresponsibly. We’ve held a meeting with parents and our staff. Those who committed the mistake have tendered an apology and expressed regrets. With this, all issues have been amicably resolved.”
Harinakshi Katipalla, whose brother’s children study in the school, said parents were hurt when they learnt that the school forced children to remove the raakhi. “Thursday was the Raksha Bandhan festival, and many children had been to the school with the thread tied around their wrist. Teachers insisted that children should remove the raakhi. When children refuse to do so, teachers forcefully cut it from children’s hands with a pair of scissors. This has hurt our sentiments,” she said.
She said the school, allegedly through a public-announcement system, asked children to remove raakhis. No police complaint has been filed in the incident yet.
