BJP Leaders Accused of Framing Principal Over Urdu Classes in Telangana

At 10 am on June 27, a group of 10 to 15 men walked into Bharat Chandra High School at Armoor in Telangana’s Nizamabad district and allegedly manhandled the principal, purportedly over complaints that he taught Urdu to a class of 25 students. The incident was caught on video and later circulated through WhatsApp groups. The principal, 37-year-old Aamir Khan, told The Indian Express that he is actually an English teacher, and that Urdu classes were, in fact, taught briefly at the private school, but by a different teacher. The classes were started on the instruction of the school management board, which he said was “headed by Hindu persons who decided that Urdu can be taught as a second language in the school”. Principal Aamir Khan says Urdu classes were taken for just 2 days, by a different teacher, after a request from parents of Muslim students pic.twitter.com/XRMVoIX6a5 — The Indian Express (@IndianExpress) June 28, 2026 Khan, who has an MA in English and a B.Ed, has been principal of the school since last year. He alleged that he was being framed in the matter by local BJP leaders. He said that after the June 27 incident, he was held at the Armoor police station for eight to 10 hours. While Telangana has a Congress government, the Armoor Assembly constituency was won by the BJP. According to Khan, the school decided to offer Urdu classes because 25% of the students are Muslim, and there was a request from Muslim parents to make Urdu available. “At the beginning of the school year, in June, two days of Urdu classes were held, and when parents of Hindu students opposed this, we decided not to conduct these classes anymore,” Khan said. However, the matter was subsequently taken up by the BJP’s Armoor town leadership. The president of the BJP’s Armoor unit, M Balu, claimed, “They were not teaching just Urdu, but were teaching Namaz and Kalima in school.” The school management, however, rejected this claim. “There was no question of teaching any religious text. The students were being taught the Urdu alphabet for two days,” the school Correspondent, Mallesh, said in a complaint lodged against the local BJP leadership at Armoor police station. The complaint, based on which an FIR was registered against Balu for trespassing and voluntarily causing hurt, was met with a counter-complaint — Tahsildar Satyanarayana of Armoor lodged the complaint under section 196 read with 3(5) of BNS (promoting enmity between groups) against the school principal and correspondent. Armoor police said they were “looking into both the complaints and will take necessary action”. Meanwhile, Balu admitted that he manhandled the teacher. “We were sure that he was trying to force Hindu students to take up Islam,” claimed Balu. Khan, meanwhile, said that he has been teaching English for the past 15 years and had taken up work as a principal at the school in 2025. “The management was happy with my work and hence decided to continue my contract this year, too,” he said. According to school management, classes started on June 17.