Class 10 question paper mentions Pakistan occupied Kashmir as 'Azad Kashmir', 2 officials suspended

A Class 10 Social Science paper in Madhya Pradesh referred Pakistan-occupied-Kashmir as 'Azad Kashmir' twice leading to the suspension of the paper setter.

While the BJP took strong objection to the Kashmir reference in the question paper, Chief Minister Kamal Nath asked the MP education board to take strict action in the matter.

Question number 26 in the paper asked the students to mark out ‘Azad Kashmir’ on India’s map while the question number 4 mentioned the same as an option asking students to match the pairs from two lists.

Chief minister’s media coordinator Narendra Saluja said that as soon as the lapse came to notice, the paper setter was placed under suspension.

According to the education board sources, a three-tier moderation committee is formed to set question paper.

Head of the committee in-turn sets up a five-member panel. All members set separate paper and submit it to the committee head for approval. Then the committee head gets final paper set with the help of two other members.

After scrutiny by the committee head, the paper is sent for printing as a confidential matter.

Flaying the lapse, BJP spokesman Rajneesh Agrawal said that the same language (calling PoK ‘Azad Kashmir’) was spoken by Congress leader Adhir Ranjan Chowdhury in Lok Sabha.

"Pakistan, separatists, some Congress leaders, and leftists speak the same language,” he alleged.

The BJP spokesman sought clarification from Congress leaders Sonia Gandhi and Rahul Gandhi for what he dubbed as “not a lapse but Congress’s stated policy”.

Protesting the reference of the Azad Kashmir, BJP workers burned an effigy of the chief minister in Agar-Malwa district.