Man booked for ‘burning Quran'
Multan, March 30: The police have arrested a man for allegedly burning pages of the Holy Quran.
The Seetal Mari police registered an FIR No 214/11 under Section 295-B against Ghulam Mustafa, a resident of Ali Town-II, on the complaint of Qari Kareem Bakhsh Saeedi, a cleric of a nearby mosque, where Mustafa’s four children go to learn the Holy Quran.
Qari Saeedi informed the police he was teaching in his seminary when some children started assembling outside the house of Mustafa.
He said the children were raising a hue and cry that pages of the Holy Quran had been burnt. He said when he reached Mustafa’s house, the latter was standing near a tandoor (earthen oven). He said he seized some semi-charred pages from the tandoor.
A mob gathered in front of Mustafa’s house wanted to lynch the suspect by burning him alive, however, on the intervention of some elders, the suspect was handed over to the police which registered a case against him and sent him behind the bars.
Qari Saeedi told Dawn he was informed by the two daughters of the accused that their father was beating their mother and was burning the pages of the Holy Quran.
He said he did not saw the accused while he was burning the pages of the holy book and did not recover any burnt pages of the Holy Quran.
“There were a few burnt pages of a children’s learning book containing holy words and not the pages of the Holy Quran,” he said.
He said the children of the accused told him their mother had sent them to him with a message that their father was burning the holy book.
He said Mustafa, a labourer, was facing a financial crunch because of which his relations with his wife were strained.
(Daily Dawn)
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