| Police to push for red corner notice | ||
Shillong, March 8 : Indra Mohan Jha, the owner and publisher of Skyline Publisher, which published the defamatory picture of Jesus Christ in the textbooks of the junior classes in Meghalaya, has given police the slip. The East Khasi Hills superintendent of police, A.R. Mawthoh, today said a police team which had gone to arrest Jha in Delhi, returned to Shillong late last night. “We will issue a red corner notice against Jha to all the states, requesting the police to trace him,” Mawthoh said. On February 23, the court of the chief judicial magistrate, Shillong, issued an arrest warrant against the publisher for depicting Jesus with a cigarette and beer can in textbooks. The police registered a case under 295 (A) IPC and moved the court, after an FIR was filed by the St Joseph School authorities in Shillong. A police official said the owner could be arrested for committing the offence under 295 (A) of the IPC, which is a “deliberate and malicious act intended to hurt the religious feeling of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs”. The maximum punishment for the offence, which is non-bailable, will be three years imprisonment with or without fine. The police had seized more than 120 copies of the textbooks from booksellers in Shillong. The state education department had also deputed officials to seize the copies from the schools. Church organisations and NGOs in Meghalaya had condemned the publisher for the offence and demanded an apology from him. Later, the publishers tendered a public apology on two occasions — to Christians for hurting their sentiments — and to the student community after the KSU demanded a separate apology. According to the police, the case will go on till he was arrested and brought to Shillong to be produced before the court. The publishers added that action had already been taken to retrieve the books. |
Cops fail to arrest publisher in Delhi
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