Sacrilege in Punjab mosque, relative of in-charge maulvi held

Sangrur: The Holy Quran was sacrileged in a village in this district of Punjab for which police has arrested a close relative of the maulvi of the mosque where the incident occurred.

The incident took place yesterday in Mehlan Chowk village of Suman, with over 100 pages of the holy book being found torn in the mosque premises, police said, adding these pages were later buried as per Muslim tradition.

Later today, police claimed to have cracked the case by arresting one Israr Mohammad of Saharanpur, Uttar Pradesh.

Police said a secret information was received that the sacrilege incident was committed by Israr and he was arrested.

The accused is the brother-in-law of Maulvi Mohmmad Mustafa, complainant in the case, police said.

The accused had allegedly committed the sacrilege to take revenge against his sister Mohseena Begum and brother-in-law Maulvi Mustafa, police said.

Earlier, the accused used to reside at the mosque along with his sister and brother-in-law.

"Israr fell in bad company and started taking drugs, because of which his sister and brother-in-law beat him and he was forced to leave the mosque three-four months ago," police said.

Earlier, the Holy Quran was desecrated in Malerkotla town on June 24 and the accused arrested in that case included Delhi's AAP MLA Naresh Yadav. He is out of jail on bail now.