Kochi: “How many of you are willing to die for Islam? Think, think think.” Thus goes a question in the syllabus of a Peace International School in Ernakulam district, that too for the second standard students. If the police version is to be believed, the school was conducting classes in religion rather than following the CBSE syllabus. “The school is asking second standard students about willingness to die. This gives an idea about the syllabus. We got a report from the education department that the syllabus is in violation of the CBSE norms,” said Ernakulam Range IG S. Sreejith. The police will continue the investigation into it and there is no plan to hand over the case to the National Investigation Agency, he said.
The cops registered a case against the Peace International School, Chakkaraparambu, and slapped 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language). The police, however, refused to reveal the names of the persons against whom the cases were registered. The Peace School officials refused to comment on the issue, but a source confirmed that the police had inspected the school in the recent past.
The district educational officers, Aluva and Ernakulam, had given a report to the police after Ernakulam assistant commissioner K. Laljy filed a complaint before them. This is the second complaint filed by the police against the Peace school in the district. They had recently inspected many of the branches of Peace schools across the state. According to a source at the school, religious texts and study materials were collected from the school by the police after Merin, a teacher with the school, allegedly joined the Islamic State. The DEOs had also filed reports before the Dy. Director of Education.
