By A Mirsab, TwoCircles.net,
Nagpur: A major controversy was avoided after Nagpur-based Orange City Publisher on Wednesday agreed to remove a depicted picture of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) along with Islamophobic contents from a class fifth Marathi text book of CBSE syllabus and offer a written apology.
On Monday, a team of Jamaat-e-Islami Hind and Students Islamic Organization of India (SIO) under the leadership of Umer Khan met proprietor of the publication and expressed anger over offensive contents in the Marathi book named ‘Nirmal’ and demanded apology, recalling of all distributed books and to remove all the offensive contents from the book.
Umar Khan, President Jamaat e Islami Hind Maharashtra meeting with the publisher of CBS book Mr.Parvesh Manoharlal Neb
Parvesh Neb, proprietor of Emkay and sons of which Orange city Publisher is a uniton Wednesday offered written apology to JIH and agreed all the demands. However, he said in the letter that depiction of Prophet Muhammad (pbuh) in the book was unintentional.
“I, with great apology for the same I am extremely sorry and request you to forgive me for the same”, he wrote in the letter.
He has recalled all the books that have already been circulated and assured of withdrawing the said controversial chapter from the book. He also assured that the said chapter will be corrected in the next edition and would first get it approved from JIH before publication.
Zahoor Ahemad, Education Secretary, JIH Maharashtra expressed satisfaction over the apology offered by publisher and told TwoCircles.net, “We are happy that a controversy is peacefully resolved. This is how such matters should be dealt with. I hope after corrections in the book a real message of Islam will be taught to the pupils”.