Meerut school diktat for Yogi haircut kicks up row

Lucknow: A CBSE affiliated school in making news for all the wrong reasons. After asking students to get a Yogi hair cut, the school has asked students not to keep beards, not carry non-vegetarian food in their tiffin boxes and stop interaction with girl students.

A number of parents on Friday protested against the directives issued by the Rishabh Academy Co-Educational English Medium School in Meerut and accused the school management of attempting to saffronise the students.

The students were allowed in on Friday after the local police and media persons intervened.

The school officials denied the charge and claimed that the parents of some students have hatched a conspiracy against the institution in an attempt to undermine its disciplinary policies.

School management official Ranjeet Jain said the administration would not succumb to pressure from a handful of parents. "We will continue our efforts to maintain discipline in our institution," he added.

Sources said that while the agitating parents — most of whom hailed from the minority community —  did not mind the school's "short-hair policy", they had a problem with comparing it to Yogi Adityanath's haircut. They accused the school management of propagating communalism in the guise of disciplinary policy.

The matter came to light on Thursday when some students were not allowed to enter the school because they did not have proper haircuts. Ranjeet Jain clarified, "I asked the students to get Yogi-like haircuts, when they were unable to understand what we wanted.”