24/02/2010
Today’s crime file opens with an unusual case – that of a publisher who put a picture showing Jesus Christ holding a beer can and a cigarette. The Delhi publisher has gone into hiding and is on the run. The file also has the murder of a 48-year-old BARC scientist. In another case, a teenaged girl was driven to depression and suicide as the police refused to complete her passport verification. Read on.
Objectionable picture of Jesus was a human error, says publisher
Shillong/New Delhi: A court in Shillong on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant against Inder Mohan Jha, the Delhi-based director of Skyline Publications, after the police moved a petition seeking his arrest for an objectionable picture of Jesus Christ in a school textbook.
After Chief Judicial Magistrate M Challam issued the warrant, DSP (Crime) Vivek Syiem said he would soon send a team to Delhi to arrest Jha.He said the state police team would team up with the Delhi Police to investigate how the objectionable picture of Jesus -- holding a beer can and a cigarette -- got into the textbook.
The picture had caused an outrage in the Christian-dominated state, after St Joseph Girls Higher Secondary School first detected it in a primary school cursive writing textbook and filed an FIR against the publisher.
Syiem said as of now the focus of investigation will be on the publisher with the printer and distributor of the book coming in later. Skyline had issued a frontpage advertisement on Monday morning apologising for the objectionable depiction of Jesus Christ.
Jha, meanwhile, is on the run. "I apologise for the mistake. I have tendered my apology with a local newspaper in Shillong. It was a human error,"he said.
"I am not in Delhi at the moment; I cannot say when I will be back. I should be back in three-four days," he said, refusing to disclose his current location.
Jha, 40, claims to be the one-man show behind Skyline, which he started "four months back." "It was my first published set of books. I had printed textbooks for classes I to V, and had printed a total of 1,200 copies," he said.
"I distributed 200 books in Shillong in December as the academic session had not started anywhere else," he said, adding that he had not distributed his books in any other state and was on his rounds across the country to do so when the controversy hit.
Jha, who would not give the location of his office, claims to have destroyed all remaining copies of his book. "I had given the job of designing the book to a Delhi-based agency, and they seem to have lifted an offensive photo off the Internet," he claimed, again refusing to share the name of his designer. He said that he would initiate legal action against his designer once he returns to the city, but expressed ignorance of any case registered against him.
Ranjith Singh of Students' BookStall, Shillong, which distributed about 120 copies of the book, said Jha had approached him in "November or December." "We stock so many publishers because most offer attractive discounts.
We cannot be expected to be so certain about their antecedents. It is up to the school to approve the book after receiving the sample copies," he added.
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K.Venugopal
#1
24 February 2010 11:01:09
It is no doubt objectionable to depict Jesus in a manner that goes against what he stood for. Showing him with a can of beer and a cigarette, a typical pose of today's restless youngsters, would be tantamount to glorifying the very culture that Jesus would have campaigned against were he to be amongst us today. However, I wonder why the secular press is not speaking up for the publisher as they spoke up for M.F.Hussain when he depicted Saraswati nude. Secular double standards where Christian sentiments are considered valid and Hindu sentiments are up for a toss?
http://news.in.msn.com/crimefile/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3646728&ucid=300866#uc2Lst300866
Today’s crime file opens with an unusual case – that of a publisher who put a picture showing Jesus Christ holding a beer can and a cigarette. The Delhi publisher has gone into hiding and is on the run. The file also has the murder of a 48-year-old BARC scientist. In another case, a teenaged girl was driven to depression and suicide as the police refused to complete her passport verification. Read on.
Objectionable picture of Jesus was a human error, says publisher
Shillong/New Delhi: A court in Shillong on Tuesday issued an arrest warrant against Inder Mohan Jha, the Delhi-based director of Skyline Publications, after the police moved a petition seeking his arrest for an objectionable picture of Jesus Christ in a school textbook.
After Chief Judicial Magistrate M Challam issued the warrant, DSP (Crime) Vivek Syiem said he would soon send a team to Delhi to arrest Jha.He said the state police team would team up with the Delhi Police to investigate how the objectionable picture of Jesus -- holding a beer can and a cigarette -- got into the textbook.
The picture had caused an outrage in the Christian-dominated state, after St Joseph Girls Higher Secondary School first detected it in a primary school cursive writing textbook and filed an FIR against the publisher.
Syiem said as of now the focus of investigation will be on the publisher with the printer and distributor of the book coming in later. Skyline had issued a frontpage advertisement on Monday morning apologising for the objectionable depiction of Jesus Christ.
Jha, meanwhile, is on the run. "I apologise for the mistake. I have tendered my apology with a local newspaper in Shillong. It was a human error,"he said.
"I am not in Delhi at the moment; I cannot say when I will be back. I should be back in three-four days," he said, refusing to disclose his current location.
Jha, 40, claims to be the one-man show behind Skyline, which he started "four months back." "It was my first published set of books. I had printed textbooks for classes I to V, and had printed a total of 1,200 copies," he said.
"I distributed 200 books in Shillong in December as the academic session had not started anywhere else," he said, adding that he had not distributed his books in any other state and was on his rounds across the country to do so when the controversy hit.
Jha, who would not give the location of his office, claims to have destroyed all remaining copies of his book. "I had given the job of designing the book to a Delhi-based agency, and they seem to have lifted an offensive photo off the Internet," he claimed, again refusing to share the name of his designer. He said that he would initiate legal action against his designer once he returns to the city, but expressed ignorance of any case registered against him.
Ranjith Singh of Students' BookStall, Shillong, which distributed about 120 copies of the book, said Jha had approached him in "November or December." "We stock so many publishers because most offer attractive discounts.
We cannot be expected to be so certain about their antecedents. It is up to the school to approve the book after receiving the sample copies," he added.
1-1 of 1
PreviousNext
K.Venugopal
#1
24 February 2010 11:01:09
It is no doubt objectionable to depict Jesus in a manner that goes against what he stood for. Showing him with a can of beer and a cigarette, a typical pose of today's restless youngsters, would be tantamount to glorifying the very culture that Jesus would have campaigned against were he to be amongst us today. However, I wonder why the secular press is not speaking up for the publisher as they spoke up for M.F.Hussain when he depicted Saraswati nude. Secular double standards where Christian sentiments are considered valid and Hindu sentiments are up for a toss?
http://news.in.msn.com/crimefile/article.aspx?cp-documentid=3646728&ucid=300866#uc2Lst300866
