Martyrs dubbed as Terrorists in Orissa schools

Bhubaneswar, Apr 26 (UNI) Perturbed over describing the country's freedom fighters and martyrs as ''terrorists'' in a school textbook, the Orissa government has asked the Board of Secondary Education(BSE) to submit a detail report by May five.

The School and Mass Education Secretary in a letter to the BSE secretary, has directed him to submit a report to the government regarding the portraying of martyr's as 'santrashbadi' in the new Social Studies text book for the class ten.

In one of the chapters called ''Santrashbadi'', the BSE textbook has described Bhagat Singh, Chandra Sekhar Azad, Sukdev and Rajguru, who played a key role in the freedom movement, as 'terrorist'.

The book had also described terrorism as an act to create panic in the minds of the people and cited the attack on World Trade Centre, Parliament in New Delhi and the militancy in Jammu and Kashmir as acts of terrorism.

A senior official of the School and Mass Education told UNI today that the BSE secretary had been asked to submit a copy of the textbook along with the report on the ''undesirable word'' and the procedure for the approval and publication of the text book followed by the BSE.

UNI