Assam teacher accuses colleagues of rape threats

GUWAHATI: The authorities in Assam are investigating the case of a school teacher who has accused her co-workers of threatening her with rape and murder and pressuring her to eat beef and convert to Islam so she could marry a Muslim. The teacher, Usha Das, has written to Assam chief minister Sarbananda Sonowal and education minister Himanta Biswa Sarma narrating her ordeal and stating that she has stopping going to school as a result of the harassment.

Counter-allegations have arisen that the teacher cooked up the story with communal overtones upon being denied a transfer. Officials said the charges are being probed by the police and school authorities.
Usha Das joined the government-run Lalipar Boys Lower Primary School in Morigaon district, 85 km from her native place of Sonapur on the outskirts of Guwahati, in July last year. The school is in a remote and Muslim-majority area.

In remarks to reporters on Tuesday, Usha Das alleged that she was harassed, teased, abused and threatened with rape and murder by her colleagues. “I faced the problem for three months until I stopped going to school 20 days ago. The headmaster Nurul Islam and his wife made several attempts to make me eat beef but I refused. When it dawned on them as well as fellow teachers that I was looking for a transfer, they threatened me with dire consequences, to the extent that I could be raped and killed outside the school,” said Das.