35 teachers meet collector over religious intolerance

Kolhapur: About 35 women teachers from various schools and colleges on Thursday demanded strict action from Kolhapur district collector Rahul Rekhawar against recent spurt in incidents of religious intolerance. The teachers, part of a forum of women activists from Kolhapur called “Women Protest For Peace”, agitated in front of the collector’s office on Thursday before submitting a report on various incidences of targeted attacks on them. One instance included religious outfits demanding a teacher to resign over slapping a class 10 student for writing a religious message in an exam paper. “It is unfortunate that teachers are targeted by the religious groups. The management of the respective schools and colleges are under pressure to fire them. The people creating the ruckus are let unpunished,” said Seema Patil, of the activists of the forum who prepared the report. “Why are the institutions such as schools, colleges and government offices, targeted when they are secular places and welcome everyone irrespective of discrimination? The collector assured us that any such case in the schools and colleges will not go unpunished. Instructions will be passed on to the police administration to ensure that such cases do not occur in educational institutions,” said Patil. Saroj Patil, president of Andhshradda Nirmulan Samiti, told the collector that schools run by Rayat Shikshan Sanstha are the ones facing increasing instances of religious intolerance. She asked collector to form a guideline for the schools to ensure there is no discrimination among the students and the staff on the basis of religious, caste and gender.
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