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Raiwind residents protest after another Quran desecrated

* 11 protesters arrested, cases registered against 60

By Shahnawaz Khan

LAHORE: Residents in Raiwind staged protests and disrupted life in the area after another Quran was desecrated in the area on Wednesday morning – the second this week.

Police lodged a first information report (FIR) against unidentified individual(s) for desecrating a copy of the Quran in a mosque toilet. The FIR was registered on the complaint of Bashir Ahmad, the qari of Masjid Gulzar-e-Habib.

Police said that a copy of the Holy Quran had been taken from the mosque and thrown in the toilet.

Muhammad Hanif, who lives next to the mosque, found the Quran in the toilet at around 5.30am. He brought the incident to the attention of Bashir Ahmad, who was preaching to students in the mosque’s courtyard at the time.

After the incident, residents blocked roads, burnt tyres and chanted slogans against the act. They started processions from Tablighi Markaz towards Kasur Road and forcibly shut down shops and markets along the way. Police tried to disperse the protestors at the Kasur Road railway crossing, but failed.

The police then resorted to baton charging and fired teargas shells, arresting 11 protestors in the process, while cases were registered against 60 people.

This is the third Quran desecration incident in the city in a little over a month. On Monday morning (August 1), a copy of the Quran was found in the toilet of Jamia Masjid Abdul Haq Zargar, while two copies of the Quran were found outside a mosque’s public toilet in the Lower Mall area on July 1.

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