Lucknow: Police have seized and banned school textbooks carrying portraits of the Prophet Mohammed and arrested the publisher in Uttar Pradesh, after Islamic clerics demanded the death penalty for him and the book's writer.
Copies of fifth standard Hindi book were seized on Thursday from the Vivekananda School in Mahoba town, Lucknow.
“The administration has banned and seized the book carrying the picture of Prophet Mohammed. The publisher of the book has been arrested,'' Home Secretary R M Srivastava said.
“The offices and printing facilities of the publisher, Pravin Prakashan, have been sealed and the book banned,” he added.
''Drawing the portrait of Prophet Mohammed is against the tenets of Islam,'' said Khalid Rashid, secretary of the All India Muslim Personal Law Board.
''The writer and the publisher of the text book should be given the death penalty.''
The state's Education Minister Kiran Pal Singh has ordered an inquiry into how the book was approved by a government panel that clears textbooks before circulation.
Muslim community held widespread protests earlier this year against Danish cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.
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