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LUCKNOW: Angry parents are demanding to know why their kids are being taught about bombs and knives at nursery schools in a northern Indian state.

They complain that a book on Hindi language alphabets for children aged 4 to 5 says that "B" stands for bomb and "Ch" for "Chaku", or knife. Pictures accompany the words.

Ram Authar Dixit, president of the Parents-Student Welfare Association of Gurukul Academy in Uttar Pradesh state, said Sunday that the national education board was investigating how such a book was cleared for private nursery schools.

More than 100 schools in the state have been using the book.

Javed Alam, a board official, blamed the book publisher for the lapse.

The Federal Board of Secondary Education issues broad guidelines to state and private schools relating to books, but leaves the content to publishers. It steps in in case of complaints, Alam said.

"It is the responsibility of the education board to provide clean books to the students," said Dixit, a parent.

The publisher could not be immediately reached for comment.

"Children have an impressionable mind. If students are taught about bombs and knives at this stage this would develop a negative mindset for them," Ananya Tiwari, a child psychologist, told The Associated Press in Lucknow, the state capital.