MULTAN: Implication of a man in a case of alleged desecration of the Holy Quran under section 295-B by police led to the tragic suicide of his 14-year-old son, Dawn has learnt.

Muhammad Shahid, a resident of Soraj Miani, committed suicide at his home on April 23 -- a day before his father was released on bail.

“He was very attached with father and stopped going to workshop where he was being trained as a mechanic the day our father was taken into police detention. He said he would go to the workshop only when father was released,” said Muhammad Yousaf, the elder brother of the deceased.

Police fail to find desecration evidence

He said Shahid was under great stress owing to the arrest of their father as police were not releasing him.

On the complaint of a local landlord, an FIR No 92/17 was lodged with the Saddar police on March 31 against unidentified men for setting the old copies of the Holy Quran along with other material in five to six bundles on fire.

Police took the bundles into custody and found some copies partially burnt. On the basis of some certificates available in the bundles, the police learnt that these were packed by Hafiz Manzoor Ahmed, a cleric at Boharwali Masjid near Chowk Braraan.

The police took Manzoor into custody and brought him to the police station, where he claimed that he packed the bundles and handed them over to a rickshaw driver for their disposal in the river Chenab against payment of Rs200.

He said he was not sure why the rickshaw driver did not dispose of the bundles in the river and rather threw them in the field and how the bundles caught fire.

The police asked Manzoor to search the driver and hand him over to them within a few days -- a demand he could not fulfill.

“He was produced before a four-member delegation of local Aman Committee which also exonerated him of desecrating the holy book,” said SP Shazia Sarwar. She said as the man committed negligence by not disposing of the holy book by himself or was not having the contact number of the driver, the police produced him before the court and got his three-day remand.

A source privy to the development told Dawn that the police sent his challan to court and got his remand. “There was no need to send the challan to court when the accused was not nominated in the case and was proved innocent during investigation. It was, in fact, an attempt to shift the responsibility of police to court,” he said.

He explained, “in many cases police take irrelevant persons into custody to probe the matter and if they’re innocent and not nominated in the case, police release them without producing them before court.” There was no justification for police to send Manzoor’s challan to court, he said.

SP Sarwar, on the other hand, said the police should rather be appreciated for investigating the matter on merit.

Published in Dawn, April 28th, 2017