Guj: students pen laudatory postcards on CAA to PM, parents

A private school in the city had to face angry parents after it asked students to write congratulatory pastcards to Prime Minister Narendra Modi for bringing in the Citizenship (Amendment) Act.

The trustee of Little Star School in Maninagar area said later that it was only a writing exercise, and the cards were not meant to be posted.

The school is affiliated to the Gujarat Secondary and Higher Secondary Education Board.

A video on social media showed parents protesting against the school's initiative, and tearing up a few postcards themselves.

One of the postcards read, "I, citizen of India, congratulate honorable Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi for Citizenship Amendment Act (CAA). I and my family support this act".

After facing backlash from parents, Jinesh Parasram, the school trustee, said the purpose was merely to improve English writing skills of class IX and X students, and the postcards were not going to be sent to the prime minister.

The school had no intention to force students to write a message in favour of the CAA, he said.

"We conduct many essay and composition exercises in the class to improve language skills of our students and this was part of such exercises," the trustee said.

"When some parents learnt about it, they came to us saying this may give the wrong impression that they were supporting the CAA. They wanted to make sure that nothing in favour or against the Act is written by students. So as per their wish, we destroyed all the postcards," he added.

The act, which offers citizenship to non-Muslim refugees who came to India from Pakistan, Afghanistan and Bangladesh before 2015, had led to protests across the country.