The Kochi City police will soon interrogate key office-bearers of the Kozhikode-based Peace Educational Foundation, including its Managing Director M.M. Akber, in connection with the case over the adoption of non-secular textbooks by Peace International School in Kochi.
According to officials, the step followed a finding that the foundation was responsible for purchasing the textbooks from the Mumbai-based Burooj Realisation and distributing the same in schools run by it. “We need to ascertain if the introduction of these books was part of a deliberate decision to trigger communal hatred among its students. For, these schools had taught different texts of Islamic Studies by another publisher till two years ago,” said K. Laljy, Assistant Commissioner of Police, Ernakulam.
The police had recently arrested three persons associated with Burooj Realisation, including its secretary, content editor of the controversial texts, and the persons who designed these books. During interrogation, they told the police that the books under investigation had been adopted by several schools across the country, other than the chain of schools run by the Kozhikode-based foundation.
According to the police, a cursory verification of the books revealed that many of the textbooks used by the school attempt to enforce a global Islamic agenda customised in the Indian context.
Meanwhile, the Judicial First Class Magistrate in Kunnumpuram on Saturday sent Dawood Vaid, Sahil Sayed and Shaik Sameed Ahmed, persons associated with the Burooj Realisation to police custody till December 9 for interrogation.
Based on a report filed by the District Education Office that the contents in many of the textbooks used by the school are not secular, the City police had earlier registered a First Information Report against the Principal, administrator, and the three managing committee members of the school under Section 153(A) for promoting enmity among different groups on the ground of religion.
