Zafar Iqbal, Haseena Khan admit responsibility of plagiarism in textbook

PBC NEWS DESK: Prof Dr Muhammad Zafar Iqbal and Prof Hasina Khan have admitted their responsibility of using a portion in the Class VII Science textbook ‘Anusandhani Path’ directly copying from the National Geographic Educational site after allegation of plagiarism has been surfaced against them.

In a joint statement on Tuesday they admitted that they had directly copied some of the contents taken from the National Geography Educational website and used in a portion of the ‘Anusandhani Path’ book.

Expressing regret and disappointment, they said an article published in a Bangla daily over the matter drew their attention.

In the statement, they said, “We are admitting that the allegation is true after comparing the textbook’s passages with the website’s contents.””Even though we were not the writers of the mentioned parts, we are still responsible as the editors of the textbook, and the necessary revision will be done to the next edition of that book,” they said.

This year the book was published on experimental basis and there are lots of scope for revision and editing of the book from the next academic year.

Apart from the aforementioned mistake, we will also accept any other reasonable opinion on the textbook, and bring the necessary revisions in the next editions,” they added.

It may be mentioned that the allegations of using a portion in the Class VII Science textbook ‘Anusandhani Path’ directly copying from the National Geographic Educational site have recently been surfaced.

Dr Muhammad Zafar Iqbal, Dr Hasina Khan, Dr Mohammad Mizanur Rahman Khan, Dr Mushtaque Ibne Ayub and Rony Basak were involved in writing the book, while Dr Muhammad Zafar Iqbal was involved in editing it.