Islami Andolan Bangladesh yesterday claimed that the new textbooks are imposing the "debatable" Darwin's theory of evolution on students and demeaning the purdah (veil) system for women.

They also said the textbooks depicted people with beard and wearing cap as anti-Liberation War, although this has no historical basis.

They made the remarks at a press conference in the capital. Amir of Islami Andolan Syed Muhammad Rezaul Karim spoke at the event, among others.

In an impromptu reaction, the National Curriculum and Textbook Board (NCTB) authorities outright rejected the claims.

The sixth-grade "History and Social Science Activity Book" has a content titled "Where Did Humans and Society Come From?" and it categorically states, "… humans were not like us today. Some people say that humans originated from monkeys. This is not correct. To know the long history of humans, many historians have been working hard for years. Some of them have discovered skeletons and bones of the ancestors of humans."

"Evolution of every species is a normal process. We're not imposing it. It's a scientific truth. How could we deny it?" NCTB member Prof Moshiuzzaman told The Daily Star.

Moshiuzzaman said the textbooks mention five quotations from a book written by Begum Rokeya, about 100 years ago, through which she described the then women's situation. "There is nothing demeaning about women [in those quotes]."