Assam Woman Arrested and Minor Detained for Forcing Hindu Classmates to Eat Beef at School

A Muslim woman and her minor son were detained by police in Assam’s Goalpara district on Saturday following an incident where the boy allegedly brought a beef dish to school and tried to force his Hindu classmates to consume it. The incident, which took place at Habraghat Higher Secondary School on Friday, came to light on Saturday morning after the families of the two affected Hindu students lodged formal FIRs at the Krishnai police station. According to law enforcement authorities, the student was joined by four other Muslim classmates when they allegedly cornered and pressured the two Hindu victims into eating the food item prepared by the boy’s mother, identified as Noor Sahida Begum.

In response to the complaints, police arrested the mother and detained her son, charging them under the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS) with criminal conspiracy, wrongful restraint, committing a criminal act with common intention, and deliberate and malicious intent to outrage religious feelings. The four other students involved in the incident were brought into the Krishnai police station for extensive questioning. Because the incident occurred in Krishnai—a communally sensitive region of Goalpara with a significant mixed population—the local district commissioner and the senior superintendent of police personally visited the school campus to handle the situation and defuse mounting communal tensions in the area.