An Indian state government and one of the country's leading bookstore chains have withdrawn a US-published book from stores because it included a sketch of the Holy Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him).
The 900-page "History of the World: Earliest Times to the Present Day" was imported from a Massachusetts-based publishing house and sold in India for the past few weeks until Muslims in West Bengal state in the east of the country protested.
"We were completely in the dark about the presence of a sketch of Prophet Mohammed in the book," Anniyan Nair, the central manager of Crossword, which has 28 stores across India, told Reuters from Mumbai by phone late on Wednesday.
"As soon as this issue was brought to our notice, we decided to take them off the shelves and stop selling it in India. We respect religious sentiments," Nair said, adding the books were removed on Wednesday from Crossword stores.
The book has a black and white sketch of the Holy Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) in a chapter on the Islamic world.
In communist-ruled West Bengal state, the local administration bought a consignment from Crossword and distributed the books in some school libraries for reference. But the state government stopped further distribution after protests by Muslim groups.
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