A private school in Vadodara, which had planned a field trip for kindergarten children to a mosque in the city, called off the visit after protests from Bajrang Dal on Tuesday. Volunteers of the Bajrang Dal, who claimed to have “received complaints” from parents, arrived at the school and threatened the school management with dire consequences if children were taken to the mosque.
The Delhi Public School in Kalali in Vadodara, which had earlier also taken children to visit a temple in the city, had planned to take the kindergarten children to a mosque as part of a field visit for value education this week. However, on Tuesday volunteers of the Bajrang Dal arrived on campus and staged a protest, chanting the Ram Dhun. Later, they met with the principal of the school and “warned” of agitation if the field trip to the mosque was not called off.
Ketan Trivedi, President of Bajrang Dal in Vadodara, said, “We have told the principal of the school that this field trip to the mosque should be called off…There is no need to mix religion with education. They can use virtual technology to show places of worship instead of taking young children to mosques. We have left it to the principal by telling him that he should consider that he would not want his school to earn a bad name in the name of religion… We have received complaints from parents and so we have come here. We will also return on the designated day when they were supposed to take the children out to the mosque and if we see that they have not complied, we will agitate as we are prepared for it.”
This story was originally published in indianexpress.com . Read the full story here
