Daily Times

NEW DELHI: An Indian school principal and two others have been charged with sedition for printing an incorrect map of Indian-Held Kashmir, police said on Wednesday, an offence technically punishable by a maximum of life in jail.

The principal was arrested on Monday along with the school’s owner and a printing press owner following a complaint by a right-wing Hindu activist, who spotted the map in a school diary.

Police said hundreds of diaries were printed by the private Green Bells Public School in the central state of Madhya Pradesh, showing parts of Kashmir within the borders of arch-rivals Pakistan and China.

Kashmir is divided between India and Pakistan but New Delhi imposes tight restrictions on all printed maps, insisting they show all of Kashmir as being within Indian borders.

“All of them have been charged with sedition and acting against the national interest,” said Satish Dwivedi, a senior police officer in Shahdol district where the men were arrested.

The accused were denied bail by a court on Tuesday, the officer said, adding they told police that the map had been printed by mistake.

If found guilty, they could be jailed for life under India’s controversial sedition law.

Maps are a highly sensitive issue in India, which has long-running border disputes with several of its neighbours, most famously over the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir.

India recently announced plans for new legislation that provides a $15 million fine and seven-year jail term for those deemed to be publishing incorrect maps.