A Bangladesh court has ordered millions of copies of a school textbook to be seized in a dispute over credit for the nation’s 1971 independence struggle, a state prosecutor said on Monday.
The high court in Dhaka instructed police to confiscate the book, a compilation of essays taught in high schools, for “distortion” in its account of how the country then known as East Pakistan emerged as Bangladesh.
“The court ruled that the book wrongly said major general Ziaur Rahman was the proclaimer of the country’s independence in 1971,” Deputy Attorney General Altaf Hossain told AFP.
“Police have been ordered to confiscate all copies of the books from schools, shops and markets in 15 days,” Hossain said.
The writer, editors and head of the government’s textbook authority have been summoned to the court on February 2, he added.