LUCKNOW: More than a week after a video went viral showing some students in Mirzapur district being served ‘roti’ with salt in mid-day meal, the district administration has booked the journalist along with two others for allegedly doing ‘despicable work’ with an intention to malign the image of the state government.
A case has been registered against Pawan Kumar Jaiswal, who is associated with a Hindi language publication, village-head representative Rajkumar Pal and unidentified persons under Sections 120 B, 186, 193 and 420 of the Indian Penal Code, said a senior police officer.
Meanwhile, interacting with media persons, state MoS Basic Education, Satish Dwivedi expressed ignorance but disapproved any such action against Jaiswal.“I will seeks all the details from the district police chief to find out why such an action was taken against a journalist for highlighting a case of wrongdoing and corruption at the primary school,” he said adding that if FIR was filed just for bringing the incident to light, it was wrong. “Even we had taken the action in the incident against the officials concerned on prima facie finding the facts true,” said the minister.
However, on the complaint of Mirzapur block education officer Prem Shankar Ram, an FIR was lodged against all the four persons at Ahiraura police station on Saturday. In his complaint, the block education officer had alleged that Jaiswal and Pal conspired and deliberately shot the video doing "despicable work" of maligning the image of the state government.
As per the details of the FIR, village head representative, Pal was aware that only rotis were cooked and there was no vegetable cooked in the school on that day. “But instead of making proper arrangements for the vegetable which was part of his responsibility, Pal called Jaiswal, got the video of the children having roti with salt shot and "pressed him to run it" in electronic media,” said a district administration official.
The video of students of the Siyur Primary School in Jamalpur block of Mirzapur district had gone viral on August 22, triggering a nation-wide outrage which led to the suspension of two teachers and a few officials of the Basic education department.
In UP, the menu of mid-day meals across the districts was fixed. The students are supposed to be given fruits and milk on some days along with a full meal comprising dal, roti vegetables and rice. "But such incidents happen due to slackness on the part of teachers and supervisory staff," said Mirzapur DM Anurag
Patel.
Meanwhile, a probe, ordered by CM Yogi Adityanath, into the incident was on and Dwivedi had promised strict action against the culprits.