New Delhi

The school named after the 1965 war veteran Abdul Hamid in his native Dhampur village in Uttar Pradesh is among 14,500 schools across the country which are being upgraded under the Prime Minister Schools for Rising India (PM-SHRI) scheme for turning these into modern and composite institutions.

Havildar Abdul Hamid died in the 1965 India-Pakistan war, fighting the Pakistan Army’s Patton tanks in the Battle of Asal Uttar with a single mounted gun. He was posthumously awarded India’s highest military honour, the Param Vir Chakra.

The Americans had some to study Abdul Hamid’s fete in the war in which the Indian soldier insgle handedly destroyed a fleet of the US-made tanks of the Pakistani Army.

However, the renaming led to a controversy with people thinking that this was the State government's way of erasing Veer Abdul Hamid's memory.

As the school building in his native village Dhampur in the district of Bijnore, about 447 km from the capital Lucknow, was being refurbished it led to the removal of the signboards and name painted on the school premises, causing uproar in the local community.

Local education officer who spoke to the media, earlier said there was no official record of the school being renamed after Veer Abdul Hamid, hence the school will be rechristened as PM SHRI composite school, Dhampur.

Member of Parliament Imran Partapgrahi also shared a video of the school sign board being repainted with Veer Abdul Hamid's name to close the controvery on X:

कैसे आकाश में सूराख़ नहीं हो सकता
एक पत्थर तो तबीअ'त से उछालो यारो
-दुष्यंत कुमार

ग़ाज़ीपुर में परमवीर चक्र विजेता वीर अब्दुल हमीद विद्यालय का बदलने वाली ख़बर के बाद सोशल मीडिया पर चौतरफ़ा उठने वाली आवाज़ से मजबूर होकर शिक्षा विभाग ने विद्यालय का नाम फिर से शहीद वीर अब्दुल हमीद… pic.twitter.com/HHSoVBlYBV

— Imran Pratapgarhi (@ShayarImran) February 17, 2025

However, later, it was clarified that the name of the school is now Shaheed Veer Abdul Hamid Vidyalaya  PM SHRI Composite School, Dhampur.

Abdul Hamid's grandson Jameel Alam, claimed that the local community was not consulted about the renaming. He said the move was an insult to Hamid’s legacy.

According to the Print, Ghazipur’s Basic Education Officer, Hemant Rao, told its reporter that the school was being repainted and that there were no plans to change its name. He claimed that the controversy arose during this process.

The Ghazipur administration has since reached out to the family and assured them that the school’s name would remain unchanged.

He, however, added that there was, in fact, no official record of the school being named after Hamid. The school has been carrying his name since 2012 in honour of the war hero who was from Dhamupur, he said.

Company Quarter Master Havildar Abdul Hamid of 4 Grenadiers of the Indian Army’s infantry regime was commander of a recoilless gun detachment during the 1965 war with Pakistan. He destroyed an entire He was awarded the Param Vir Chakra posthumously.

Several Congress leaders in the state, such as Members of Parliament Chandrashekhar Azad Ravan and Imran Pratapgarhi, and president of Uttar Pradesh Congress Committee Ajay Rai, slammed the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) government for excluding Muslims who have fought for the country.

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In July 2024, Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) chief Mohan Bhagwat had visited Dhamupur to release two books— Mere Papa Paramvir, about Abdul Hamid, and Bharat Ka Musalman.