Jammu: A court here has remanded three publishers to 10-day police custody in connection with the alleged publication and circulation of books allegedly glorifying separatist leaders, officials said on Monday.
The Counter Intelligence Unit in Jammu arrested the three publishers on Sunday as part of its ongoing probe into the controversy over certain books supplied to government libraries that were allegedly found to contain material glorifying separatists.
The books in question are ‘Personalities and Legends of J&K’, authored by Hilal Ahmad and Santosh Meena, and published by Jammu-based Oberoi Book Service, and ‘Great Personalities of Jammu and Kashmir’, authored by Sushant Giri and published by the Delhi-based Anurag Prakashan.
The arrested publishers — Inderpaul from Oberoi Book Service and Amardeep Singh and Girish Arora from the Noida-based Dominant Publishers — were virtually produced before the court, which granted the police remand to facilitate further investigation into the case, the officials said.
Previously, both Oberoi Book Service and Dominant Publishers had been blacklisted by the government. Counter-intelligence teams conducted raids on their premises on July 6.
On July 4, the counter intelligence unit registered an FIR under Sections 49 (abetment), 61(2) (criminal conspiracy), 152 (endangering the sovereignty, unity, and integrity of India), 196 (promoting enmity, disharmony) and 353 (publishing, or circulating false statements, rumours, or reports) of the Bharatiya Nyaya Sanhita (BNS), besides Section 13 of the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act.
The case was registered shortly after Lieutenant Governor Manoj Sinha suspended eight officials from the School Education Department, dismissed a contractual staff member, and ordered an inquiry into the two controversial books that contained “highly inappropriate content.”
