Clarion India
DELHI – The principal of the government higher primary school located in Faridpur in Uttar Pradesh’s Bareilly district has reportedly been arrested after Hindutva groups opposed the popular Urdu poem by the school children.
The principal was initially suspended by the education department.
Trouble erupted after a video started circulating on the internet where a group of students can be seen singing the popular Urdu language prayer ‘lab pe aati hai dua banke tamanna meri’ in the morning assembly. The clip shows the part where the children are heard singing the lines ‘mere allah burai se bachaana mujhko’.
Some members of the local unit of VHP accused school principal Nahid Siddiqui and Shiksha Mitra (teacher) Waziruddin of hurting the religious sentiments of the people in the Hindu-dominated area by reciting “madrassa-type prayers” in the school. They also alleged that the accused were also trying to convert the students.
The poem- Lab Pe Aati Hai Dua – also known as Bachche ki Dua, was composed by Muhammad Iqbal in 1902. Iqbal was a writer, philosopher, scholar and politician. His Urdu poetry was famous and is considered among the greatest of the twentieth century.
