Quran pages returned to masjid, buried

Police on Thursday gave a local mosque the torn pages of the Quran, which were found with phone numbers written on it in Ghaziabad's Prem Nagar. The pages were later buried.

This was the third time in over a month that pages of the Quran have been found in Ghaziabad. The first incident was reported in Pilkhuwa in August and then in Masuri on September 14.

Police officers said the torn pages, discovered on Tuesday, were returned to the Imam of Chand Masjid, who is the complainant in the FIR.

SP (City) S S Yadav said: "Those were pages from a holy book. That's why we returned them to the masjid."

Elders at Chand Masjid said the pages were buried in accordance with custom. "The custom is to bury the Quran if it is found torn or desecrated. This is also done to prevent tension that any incident of desecration might trigger," one of them said.

"When the pages were returned to us by police in a sealed packet, we asked if we could bury them. Police gave us the go-ahead," he said.

In the Masuri case, the pages were returned to Rafiqabad Masjid, but Abdul Qadir, the muezzin of the mosque, was told to keep them safely. He was told the pages could be needed during the investigation.

This was required because six persons died and close to 25 injured in Masuri after clashes broke out when the torn pages of the Quran was discovered.

Police officers said they have yet to find any common link between the Masuri and Prem Nagar incidents, despite the similarities.

"In both cases, torn pages of the Quran were found near railway tracks by children. There were phone numbers on it. Thus far, investigations have revealed that the handwriting does not match nor the phone numbers," an officer said.

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