The Jammu & Kashmir government Saturday withdrew two books from its school libraries on the ground that they contained “highly inappropriate content” on separatism. Eight officials from the school department have been suspended, and one contractual employee terminated, after the row broke out. The withdrawn books – ‘Personalities and Legends of J&K’ by Hilal Ahmed and Santosh Meena, and ‘Great Personalities of Jammu and Kashmir’ by Dr Sushant Giri — were published by Oberoi Book Service, Jammu, and Anurag Prakashan, Delhi, and supplied to school libraries as part of Samagra Shiksha for higher secondary classes. According to an order by Ram Niwas Sharma, Commissioner/Secretary, School Education Department, the books contained references with the “potential to create law-and-order issues”, and their selection reflected “serious negligence, dereliction of duty and lack of due diligence”. The order also blacklisted the authors and their publishing houses from publishing any other material in the Union Territory. While 123 copies of the first book were supplied to school libraries in Jammu, Ramban and Udhampur districts, 128 copies of the second were …