Jatiya Party MP Mujibul Haque Chunnu on Sunday demanded to drop two controversial lines from 'Sharifa's story' in the textbook of Grade-VII.

The opposition chief whip made this demand while participating in an unscheduled discussion in the House.

Chunnu, also the secretary general of Jatiya Party, said, "Recently, one issue is being discussed everywhere in newspapers and social media - it can be seen that many times there are wrong discussions, people's sentiments are getting hurt. It creates confusion. It's a story from a Class VII textbook - Sharifa's story.”

After reading out the story in Parliament, Haque highlighted the differences between transgender, third gender and hijra, and said that considering oneself to be 'a gender' other than one's birth gender is 'transgender'. This is completely an issue of perception. Hijra is the 'third gender' and this is by birth.

He claimed that the idea of 'transgender' as a third gender and including it in textbooks does not seem to be good at all.

“No one has any objection to hijra. But the concept of transgender is in conflict with Islam,” Chunnu said.

He said that showing respect to the Muslims of the country, the two lines of Sharifa's story—"When I was young, everyone called me a boy, but once I realised that my body is like a boy but I am a girl in my mind” should be excluded and people will not object to it anymore.