Updated

A textbook has sparked outrage in India for instructing fourth-graders to put a kitten in an unventilated box and wait for it to die to show that living beings need air.

The experiment described in the environmental science textbook for 9-year-olds tells the students to place two kittens in separate boxes, one of them without air holes, to see the result.

"The kitten inside the box without holes has died," the instructions read.

The book was being used by hundreds of schools in north India since last April. Parents have complained and animal lovers have expressed outrage.

The publisher said Friday that the book was no longer being published and would not be prescribed for the new school year starting in April.