Quran pages found again,now in Prem Nagar

This is the third such find in Ghaziabad in the past one month — desecrated pages were first found in Pilkhuwa on August 10 and then in Masuri on September 14,police said.

According to police,the torn pages found in Prem Nagar also had a few phone numbers scribbled on them.

“The ragpicker found the pages near the railway tracks in Prem Nagar,close to Devendra Hotel. He handed them to his father— a scrap dealer — who took the pages to Chand Masjid,” a police officer said.

Police said community elders along with the Imam decided to bury the book to avoid a conflagration on the lines of the Masuri incident.

“The scrap dealer took the pages to the mosque at 6 am on Wednesday. Those at the mosque called the phone number scribbled on the pages. The number is of an owner of a farmhouses on Meerut Road,” the officer said.

“The farmhouse owner denied any involvement,and later contacted the police. Police then got in touch with the masjid authorities and asked them to hand over the pages for an investigation,” he said.

Superintendent of Police (City) S S Yadav said: “It is a sensitive case. A case has been registered under IPC Sections 153A (promoting enmity between religious groups) and 295 (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings).”

Police said investigations were on to ascertain whether the incident was linked to the those in Pilkhuwa and Masuri.

Imam of Chand Masjid said: “We were given the pages at the time of the morning namaaz and there were a lot of people here. But we asked everyone to stay calm and not to spread the word. We chose not to go to the police. The officers came to the mosque to register an FIR. If we had gone in a group,anger could have spread like it happened in Masuri.”

Police have deployed extra personnel in the area,most of them in plain clothes.

The Imam said,“We asked the policemen to stay off the roads and gave them rooms inside the mosque so that people do not panic. We didn’t allow the local media to take interviews or photographs either.”