KOCHI: Kochi City Police on Friday made a major breakthrough in a case against Peace International School, Chakkaraparambu, when they arrested three persons who published the textbooks that allegedly fostered communal disharmony.
The arrested were identified as Dawood Mohamed Vaid, 38, Srishti Homes, Navi Mumbai, Sameed Ahammed Sheikh, 31, Sector Street, and Sahil Hameed Sayed, 28, Vittoli Park.
The school was facing allegations of teaching religion, especially Islam, to second standard students, instead of following any prescribed textbooks. One of the second standard books contained the question, “Will you give your life for Islam?”
The arrested trio ran the Mumbai-based Burooj Realization, which published the controversial books. The school had distributed the books to students.
Dawood is chairman of Burooj Realization, while Sahil is curriculum designer and Sameed selects pictures for the book. The three were first summoned via formal notice for interrogation and were arrested later. During interrogation, they deposed that serious error had occurred in the Class II textbooks and added that the rectified edition of books will be published for the next academic year. Earlier, a committee had ratified the book’s content and police said they will question its chairman.
The cops had previously registered a case against the school under IPC Section 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language). They had also seized several textbooks containing highly objectionable content.
On its part, the school had claimed that they just followed the textbooks released by publishers and withdrew them soon after they found it to be objectionable.