TN govt on defense after suspension of teacher over conversion charges

Chennai, April 14 The Tamil Nadu government has got into a defensive mode following controversies over a teacher being suspended on conversion charges.

State School Education Minister Anbil Mahesh Poyyamozhi while speaking to said: "The conversion incident is an isolated one and not as being made out to be by the BJP. The teacher was immediately put on suspension after a sixth standard student charged that there were conversion attempts on the part of a lady teacher in the Government higher secondary school at Kanniyakumari.

He said that the incident should not have happened and that the government has asked the school and the district education department for a detailed report on the incident.

The issue came to light after a sixth standard girl student of a Government Higher Secondary School in Kanniyakumari charged that their tailoring teacher wanted the students to read the Bible. When some students told her that they were Hindus and were reading Bhagvad Gita, the teacher insulted Gita and the Hindu religion as such.

The girl student, in a video recorded in presence of the police officers, said that the teacher used to insist that the students should read Bible and when the students said that they were Hindus and reading Bhagvad Gita, the teacher said that Bible was the truth and Gita was bad.

BJP Tamil Nadu state president K. Annamalai in a tweet said that the DMK government would not have bothered about the issue and took it up after it became a news.

He also said that suspension of the teacher is not a solution to this and the anti-forced conversion law is the need of the hour.

It may be recalled that at Michael Patti in Thanjavur district a 17-year-old girl had committed suicide on January 19 alleging forced conversion to Christianity by her school hostel warden.

The 67-year-old warden of Sacred Heart School hostel, Sister Saghya Mary was arrested based on the dying deposition of the girl and BJP and other Hindu organisations raking up major protests across the state.

The state government is on the defensive after another incident of conversion has also come out in the media and as a fire fighting exercise, the teacher was suspended and the state school education Minister is speaking to the media.

However, the issue of conversion will be taken up by the BJP across the state and the DMK will have to do a lot of defense against the same.