April 26, 2008	Saturday	Rabi-us-Sani 19, 1429

LAHORE, April 25: The Punjab education department has taken a decision to remove President Pervez Musharraf and former Punjab chief minister Pervaiz Elahi's messages and pictures printed back-to-back on a page in Class-I to Class-X textbooks, being distributed free-of-cost in government schools all over the province.

In order to avoid embarrassment at the hands of the new PML-N government in Punjab, the education department itself discussed and took a decision that a page carrying both political leaders' messages and pictures be removed from the textbooks lying in the warehouses at tehsil-level as well as the main warehouse of the Punjab Monitoring and Implementation Unit (PMIU). It is estimated that over 500,000 textbooks are lying in the warehouses.

It is learnt that the education department led by secretary Qazi Afaaq Husain had also discussed an option to block the textbooks lying in warehouses. However, it was decided that such a huge number of textbooks be brought in use by removing the ‘objectionable page’ instead of blocking and converting those books into a pile of waste papers. The meeting agreed that the wastage of books would bring embarrassment than purging the textbooks of `political influence of the previous government' by removing a page.

Consequently, the page is being torn by education department monitoring supervisors under the supervision of district monitoring officers (DMOs) and the PMIU at all warehouses in tehsils in Punjab and the main PMIU warehouse.

It is learnt that the new textbooks, which are being printed these days, do not carry Pervez Musharraf and Pervaiz Elahi's messages but that of the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. The new textbooks include those for Class-I, VI and IX, which are based on updated curricula.

When contacted, Punjab special secretary education (schools) Zahid Saeed said the education department had this year decided to distribute textbooks before summer vacation to students studying in government schools all over the province.

As the new PML-N government had come into power, he said, the education department had on its own decided to remove one page carrying Pervez Musharraf and Pervaiz Elahi's messages and pictures to avoid any embarrassment. "The education department had discussed various proposals and finally agreed to remove the page in question," he said.

Answering a question, Saeed said the department had no option than to remove President Pervez Musharraf's message and picture because it was printed back-to-back on a page carrying Pervaiz Elahi's message and picture as well.

He said the new textbooks, which are in printing process, do not carry any political leader's message or picture but that of the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah. "The textbooks were sent for printing, while there was a caretaker government in the Punjab province," he added.

—Mansoor Malik