Jharkhand: Prophet’s pic in study material triggers row, removed later

RANCHI: The socio-religious body of Muslims, Edara-e-Shariah, and the minority cell of the ruling Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) took strong exception to the circulation of a Prophet Mohammad photograph in the study material distributed by Digi Sath — a platform that operates the online education system among school students. The state education council apologised for the human error and said the photograph has been taken down.
The central president of JMM’s minority cell, Hidayatullah Khan, said circulating the photograph of Prophet Mohammad tantamounts to blasphemy and aimed at disrupting the religious harmony in the state. The cell has also filed an FIR with the Kotwali police station here to identify those responsible and to take action against them.
He said the study material for history is meant for Class VII students of state government schools and circulated on May 21. It contained details of Islam religion and a photograph of Prophet Mohammad.
Jharkhand head of Edara-e-Shariah, Maulana Qutubuddin Rizwi, said, “It is well known that there are around 1.24 lakh prophets in Islam but none is identified by photographs because they are forbidden.”
He pointed out that it could have been a deliberate attempt to hurt religious sentiments because the person or people arranging the study material must have taken extra pain to attach a photograph as nowhere a photograph of the Prophet can be found.
The group has written letters to chief minister Hemant Soren, several of his cabinet colleagues and the director of the Jharkhand Education Project Council (JEPC) to take action against those responsible in Digi-Sath.
Digi Sath, run in association with JEPC for government schools, provides online study material and is the project of a Delhi-based company named Eckovation.
Commenting on the issue JEPC director Sailesh Chaurasia said the matter was brought to his notice and the study material has already been taken off the online platform. “It must have been a human error and I don’t see any deliberate attempt. There is a huge pressure to prepare online material by curating information available online and in that pressure someone must have done it mistakenly,” he said.
Khan added, “Even if the content is removed, there are mischievous elements in society who are circulating it further on social media to disrupt communal harmony. So, police must identify and arrest the culprits.”