Chairman of Peace International School group held in Hyderabad

NEW DELHI: The chairman of the Peace I nternational school group MM Akbar was arrested at the Hyderabad international airport early on Sunday in connection with a case about teaching communal hatred in the group’s schools, said police.

Kerala police had issued a lookout notice against him in early 2017on charges that schools run by his group were using study materials intended to create communal divide.

“Our officers have left for Hyderabad to bring him back,” a senior police officer said.

Police said Akbar had flown in from Australia and was headed for Qatar when he was arrested.

A spokesperson of the Peace School group, who did not want to be identified, said in Kozhikkode that the chairman’s arrest was “part of a vilification campaign aimed at tarnishing a minority education group”. He said the group has faith in the country’s judiciary and will question his arrest in the court.

In October 2016, Kerala police had filed a case against Peace Educational Foundation, which runs the Peace International schools in Kerala and the neighbouring states of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu for “including objec- tionable study material in school curriculum aimed at disrupting communal harmony”.

The state government had shut one of the schools in Kochi a couple of months ago after the district collector and police chief submitted a report saying though the school was affiliated to the NCERT, its syllabus was quite different. The probe found contents of texts were radical and promoted enmity between different communities.

In December 2016, the Kochi police had arrested three Mumbai-based publishers for printing textbooks containing objectionable content taught at Peace International School in Ernakulam.