The directors of Florets International School in Kanpur’s Gandhinagar have been accused of ‘sowing the seeds of conversion’ in an FIR registered against them on August 2. | Special arrangement.

By / Scroll

Ravi Rajput is dismayed. The 35-year-old salesperson’s son attends the Florets International School in Kanpur. On August 2, Rajput had filed a police complaint against the school director for allegedly compelling students to recite Islamic prayers. The school has now been sealed by the local administration.

“The intention was never to shut the school down, only that the prayer stops,” said Rajput. “I never wanted my son’s education to suffer.”

He had managed to get his 11-year-old child re-admitted in school after the two years of the pandemic. It had not been easy for Rajput, who earns Rs 12,000 a month. “We had to cut down on our expenses,” he said. But it had to be done. “Online education is not the same as going to school, everyone knows that,” he said.

According to Rajput, he filed the police complaint on the request of Geeta Nigam, the Bharatiya Janata Party mahila morcha president in Kanpur. “I would not have gone to the police station myself to register a case,” he said.

Nigam confirmed to Scroll.in that she had called Rajput and told him to go to the police station “if he wanted”.

On August 2, the police filed an FIR based on Rajput’s complaint. The school’s managing director, Sumeet Makhija, has been booked under Section 295A – outraging religious feelings – and a section of the Uttar Pradesh Prohibition of Unlawful Conversion of Religion Act, 2021.

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