The government-aided Vallapuzha Higher Secondary School near Pattambi remained closed on Monday with over 3,000 students boycotting classes as part of an indefinite strike demanding removal of school deputy headmistress K.P. Sasikala, who is also State president of Hindu Aikya Vedi and the public face of Sangh Parivar in Kerala.
The students and their parents took out a march alleging that Ms. Sasikala was creating communal divide and causing disrepute to the school and the Muslim majority Vallapuzha by terming the village ‘mini-Pakistan.’
The students have declared that they would not allow the school to function till the removal of Ms. Sasikala, against whom the Kasaragod police had registered a non-bailable case two weeks ago for making inflammatory speeches creating communal divide. Black flags greeted Ms. Sasikala when she reached the school on Friday and no academic activity has happened there since then. She did not turn up at the school on Monday.
Towards a solution
The protesters pasted posters on the school wall against the continuance of Ms. Sasikala as a high school assistant for Social Studies. Teachers at the school told The Hindu that they were planning to convene an all-party meet next week to discuss the issue and the possibility of resuming classes.
“The police have seized footages in which Sasikala humiliated our village and its people by equating us with Pakistan. It is a fact that 95 per cent of the students at the school are Muslims. The grama panchayat is also Muslim majority area. But Vallapuzha’s communal harmony has never been disrupted,” said Ali Vallapuzha of Janakeeya Prathikarana Vedhi.
Ms. Sasikala, who has been teaching at the school for 36 years, said she would not leave the profession. She said she made the comment in the U.S. long back at a television interview.
