Dorjie Gurung, a Nepali teacher who was detained in a jail in Qatar and later released, today said he was responding to “harassment” from his Muslim students in a jocular fashion, but was charged with blasphemy. Gurung, a resident of Mustang, was a Chemistry teacher in Qatar Academy until his dismissal for his alleged remark insulting Islam in front of students.

He was taken into custody on May 1, when he was preparing to return to Nepal. “I think I will never go to Qatar again,” he said responding to mediapersons after landing in Kathmandu, yesterday evening.

According to Gurung, students at QA used to pick on his Asian accent and ‘harassed’ him by calling him Jackie Chan because of his Mongolian look.

Recently, when three seventh grade students tried to bully him at the school lawn, he asked them not to tease him, but they did not oblige.

Then, when he rhetorically asked them,”How would you feel if I say all Muslims were terrorists?,” one of the students complained to his guardian, Gurung explained.

Following the incident, the guardian complained against him at school for defaming Muslims.

Immediately after the complaint was filed, Gurung, who had been teaching at the school since August 2011, was dismissed before his annual contract expired in June.

After dismissal, he was headed for Qatar airport to come to Nepal when police arrested him on blasphemy charges.

He was produced before the local court twice, where he denied the charges against him.

According to him, he was released not because of the court’s verdict but after the student’s guardian withdrew the case against him.

He said support from his friends in the Gulf, Europe, America and elsewhere might have also put pressure on Qatari authorities to release him. As soon as news of his arrest spread, the Nepali community and his supporters across the world had started a petition campaign on social networking sites like facebook for his release.

“I want to do charity work in Nepali villages,” he said adding that he has already taken initiative to this effect.

Published on: 15 May 2013 | The Himalayan Times