Parveen Shaikh expressed disappointment that The Somaiya School’s management chose not to support her in the face of a ‘vitriolic public vilification campaign’.
By Scroll Staff
The Somaiya School in Mumbai on Tuesday terminated the services of its principal Parveen Shaikh after OpIndia, a Hindutva website accused of spreading misinformation and hate speech, targeted her for her purported political views.
Shaikh had been asked to resign by the school management on April 26. She told Scroll at the time that she had no intention to do so.
In a statement on Tuesday, the school management said: “It has come to our attention that the personal social media activities of Ms. Parveen Shaikh…have been starkly misaligned with the values we cherish.”
On April 24, OpIndia carried a story claiming to expose Shaikh’s “disturbing social media behaviour”. It accused her of being a “Hamas-sympathiser”, “anti-Hindu” and a supporter of “Islamist Umar Khalid” based on posts that she had “liked” from her Twitter account.
Since then, the publication and its editor have been regularly calling for Sheikh’s ouster online, suggesting that her political views are detrimental to the “thousands of unsuspecting children” in her care as an educator. This has triggered a battery of hate speech against Shaikh on Twitter.
“Given the gravity of these concerns, and after careful consideration, the management has discontinued Ms. Parveen Shaikh’s association with Somaiya Vidyavihar to ensure that our ethos of unity and inclusivity is not compromised,” the school management said.
This story was originally published in scroll.in. Read the full story here.