Kochi: Nearly two months after the state government ordered closure of Kochi-based Peace International School upon finding it teaching textbooks propagating communal hatred, its chairman M.M. Akbar was intercepted at Hyde-rabad airport and brought to Kochi on Sunday. The controversial Isla-mic preacher and managing director of the Kozhikode-based Peace Educational Foundation was on the run for over a year. “Akbar was intercepted at 11 pm on Saturday by Immigration officials based on a lookout notice issued by the Kochi Police earlier. He was on his way from Australia to Qatar via Malaysia and landed in Hyderabad for a brief stopover,” one of the sources said.
A four-member squad led by Vipin Das, sub-inspector of police, Ernakulam North, soon left for Hyderabad and recorded his arrest at 11.30 am on Sunday. The team brought him back to Kochi later in the day. “He’ll be subjected to a preliminary round of interrogation and will be produced before a court on Monday,” he said. The case was lodged in October 2016 based on a complaint by the district education officer. A probe by the education department found the school wasn’t teaching from textbooks recommended by the NCERT, CBSE or SCERT, instead followed ones compiled by a Mumbai-based Islamic educational institution.
In December 2016, the Kochi Police arrested three Mumbai-based publishers for printing the textbooks with objectionable content. Portions of a Class II textbook that propagates Islamic Orthodoxy and conversion were leaked, in which there were objective type questions on what the students would do “if their friend wanted to convert to Islam” and “how to deal with non-Muslims” among others. Finally, in January last, the Chief Minister ordered shuttering the school based on the recommendation for action by the district collector and the department of education. The institution has 13 schools under its banner in different districts in the state, and the government is considering similar action against the rest.
