West Bengal Education Minister Partha Chatterjee on Tuesday said the book in which the photograph of actor Farhan Akhtar was erroneously depicted as that of athlete Milkha Singh, was neither published by the State government nor was it a text book.
Mr. Chatterjee, however, told reporters here after meeting department officials and the publisher, that if someone formally took up the matter with the government, “We will certainly initiate necessary action.”
“It was not a text book published by the State government, and there can be such mistakes in a few books even though that is unfortunate. The State government will not intervene on its own but initiate action if someone lodges a formal complaint,” the minister said.
An Education Department official said a high-level meeting, attended by Mr. Chatterjee and other senior officials, on Tuesday deliberated on the issue and the publisher of the book has already been cautioned.
Meanwhile, the publisher, Anup Das, admitted it was a “serious mistake” and assured of rectifying the error.
The photograph of a book depicting Akhtar as Singh had gone viral on social media, following which the actor urged the West Bengal government to correct the “glaring error“.
The 44-year-old, who essayed the role of Singh in the 2013 biopic ‘Bhaag Milkha Bhaag’, took to Twitter to point out that a still from the film had been incorrectly used in the book instead of the real athlete’s photo.
“To the Minister of School Education, West Bengal. There is a glaring error with the image used in one of the school text books to depict Milkha Singh-ji. Could you please request the publisher to recall and replace this book? Sincerely,” Akhtar had written on Twitter.
The actor-director had also tagged Trinamool Congress Rajya Sabha MP Derek O’Brien to draw his attention to the post.
Mikha Singh, also known as ‘The Flying Sikh’, was the first Indian to win an individual athletics gold medal at the Commonwealth Games in 1958.