No non-veg food for Peddapur Gurukul students on Sundays

The Gurukul has been in the news in the recent past following the death of two students due to unknown reasons and also after many students fell sick.

Jagtial: It has been a common practice for government residential schools in the State to serve non-vegetarian dishes to their hostel inmates every Sunday. It was also mandatory to serve non-vegetarian dishes such as chicken, mutton and eggs to the inmates of hostels. However, the Peddapur Gurukul in the district has stopped this practice recently, reportedly based on request from parents.

The Gurukul has been in the news in the recent past following the death of two students due to unknown reasons and also after many students fell sick. While Jana Vignana Vedhika activists termed the move as superstition, devotees welcomed the school management’s decision. The school is situated in Metpalli mandal, which has a famous shrine called Mallanna (Shiva) temple in the village. A huge Mallanna Bonala jatara is held here the Sunday after the Holi festival every year. Moreover, there is a tradition that local people do not consume non-vegetarian food as well as liquor on Sundays, considering the day auspicious for the local god. Except a few, a majority of the village’s population of 3,000 refrain from non-veg food on Sundays, it is said.

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It is learnt that a few villagers and parents had earlier asked the Gurukul authorities to follow the tradition being practised in the village and avoid serving non-veg food to students on Sundays. However, school authorities had not considered their appeal. With the recent untoward incidents in the school in July and August, the issue of serving non-veg food on Sundays again came to the fore.

After the death of the second student on August 9, all the parents took their wards home. During that time, some of the parents opined that serving non-veg food on Sundays was the reason for the death of students. Participating in meetings organized at the school, a few parents again raised the demand to stop serving non-veg food on Sundays. Following this, the Gurukul authorities decided to stopped serving non-veg on Sundays and decided to serve non-veg food on another day, School principal Madhavi Latha told Telangana Today.

While chicken was being served four times, mutton was being served twice a month, she added.

Peddapur Mallanna temple committee chairman Mittapalli Narayana Reddy hailed the school authorities’ decision to avoid non-veg on Sundays. Stating that they never asked the management to stop serving non-veg on Sunday, he said a majority of villagers would not consume liquor and eat non-veg on Sunday.

On the other hand, terming this as superstition, JVV State committee member Sri Ramaraju said the school management should prepare non-veg and serve the students on every Sunday without fail by following the hostel menu. Moreover, the act of the school management would give a wrong impression to students, he opined.