Karnataka: Children interrogated repeatedly at Bidar school over play against CAA

In Karnataka, School children are being put through a totally different routine. In the afternoon, a cop arrives for over four to five hours of questioning, reported NDTV.

The crime they have committed is that they participated in a play which was against the new Citizenship Act. The play was staged on January 21.

The interrogation is on even after the headmistress and a student's mother were arrested last week, the school administration has said.

A widowed mother of a child was arrested on Thursday on charges of sedition over a few lines the child said in the play.

According to school administration, children from 6 to 8 have been questioned four times already. "Who scripted the play?" and "Did the teacher instruct you?" They are asked over and over again.

According to a report in NDTV, School's CEO Thouseef Madikeri said, "They are kept out of the class for four to five hours regularly. The Deputy Superintendent of Police will come around 1 pm. They will question the children till 4 O'clock. This is what has been happening for the last 4 days. We don't know why they have put the sedition charge on us. It is beyond the imagination of any reasonable person.”

"One of the parents has already apologised. This is like mental harassment for the parents and also the students. They are living in a kind of fear,” he added.

In an open letter, several parents in Bengaluru have condemned the arrest of the headmistress and the parent.

The child of the widowed mother who was arrested allegedly said the dialogue in the play, "Joote marenge (will beat with shoes)".

The Police have filed charges like sedition and promoting enmity on grounds of religion against the school. After interrogating students and teachers, cops arrested the student's mother and the headmistress on January 30.

The mother tutored the child to introduce those words which were not in the script, the police claimed. The headmistress was arrested because the play was held with her knowledge and permission.

"In blatant violation of the Juvenile Justice Act (2015), the New Town station police have repeatedly interrogated the school children, some as young as 9, without allowing their parents to be present, for hours at a stretch illegal and inhumane actions of the Bidar police,” a group of parents in Bengaluru have written in an open letter alleging "

"If there was any doubt that the police department is being used as an instrument of those in power, this incident should put it to rest. The police were acting under the diktats of the state government and using an archaic sedition law to suppress dissent against the Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA) and National Register of Citizens (NRC). The arrested parent had not even been named in the First Information Report and the charges against her were not clear.”

"What security threat did these two women pose that they had to be arrested immediately and without the possibility of bail?" it said.

"We do not want our children to grow under the fear of terror - inflicted by non-state operatives or by those in power... This situation where children who performed a play are being repeatedly questioned by senior police officers concerns all of us as parents, any of whose children would be subject to such interrogation for expressing their thoughts in a creative manner," said the parents, demanding that the police immediately drop all the cases and release the two arrested women.