Daily Times

KASUR: A blasphemy case has been filed against seven people who have allegedly burnt pages of Quran at Harihar Village in District Kasur today (Wednesday).

The locals tortured the suspects who were rescued and taken into custody by police.

After being informed, District Police Officer Shahzad Asif involved the members of the district peace committee in the matter. The peace committee immediately mediated to calm down the enraged people by delivering speeches and helped police in getting custody of the suspects from them.
The case was filed against the seven suspects, who were accused of burning the pages of Holy Quran near the village graveyard on Monday evening, under section 295-B of Pakistan Penal Code (PPC).

The complainant has said that he saw fire on the other end of the graveyard while he was crossing the graveyard along with two others – Munir Ismail and Shabir Asid.

He said they rushed to the spot and saw that the prime suspect was burning a large quantity of “holy pages”. He said when they tried to stop the suspect, he snubbed them harshly.

The complainant said when they raised hue and cry to gather the locals and bring the matter to their attention, the mob started beating the prime suspect. Six others nominated in the FIR registered against the seven people, have said that the prime suspect was burning the pages on his own will.

A local was also found to be saying that the whole episode might be a result of some misunderstanding and the police were investigating it.

Maulana Shabbir Ahmad along with other members of the committee and police officers reached the spot and delivered speeches to convince the mob to handover the suspect to police. The locals handed the prime suspect over to police on being assured that justice would be served.

However, DPO said that the situation was “completely under control” and police were looking into the matter from various angles.