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MANSEHRA, Jan 18: The workers of a religious group on Friday attacked an under-construction mosque and madressah of Ahl-i-Hadith people in Batagram and took away with them the doors, windows and zinc sheets of the building.
According to information collected by this correspondent, the Jamiat Ahl-i-Hadith had purchased a piece of land in Batagram in 1997 for the construction of a mosque and a Madressah.
The construction of the building was partially completed when its people allegedly published a controversial pamphlet which infuriated the followers of the other group.
On the protest of the religious group, the local administration stopped work on the construction of the mosque and the madressah. The Peshawar High Court, circuit bench Abbottabad, by accepting a writ petition of Ahl-i-Hadith ulema, had allowed them to resume work on the building. However, the JUI-F ulema were adamant that they would not allow the Ahl-i-Hadith people to construct a mosque and madressah in Batagram.
A large number of JUI (F) workers and leaders, headed by Maulana Najmuddin, took out a procession. They blocked the Karakoram Highway and set fire to old tyres on the Batagram bridge. Later, they stormed the under-construction mosque and madressah.
The eyewitnesses claimed that the police reached the spot after half an hour and watched the workers play havoc with the building. An official on duty in the Batagram police station said that an FIR under sections 295, 153-A, 427, 436, 148 and 149 of the PPC had been registered against Maulana Najmuddin and Maulana Mohammad Khurshid, of JUI (F) Batagram. The official said that no arrests had been made in the case.
CONDEMNED: The Jamiat Ahal-i-Hadith has condemned the miscreants who had attacked their mosque in Batagram, and demanded registration of an FIR against JUI MNA Maulana Qari Muhammad Yousuf, our correspondent adds from Abbottabad.
The group set a 48-hour deadline for the administration to arrest the accused. Speaking at a hurriedly-called press conference here, JAH's provincial chief Maulana Muhammad Suleman and others blasted the Batagram administration and police who, according to them, had been unable to stop miscreants from attacking the mosque.
They claimed that 13 copies of the Holy Quran and other holy books, including "Saha-i-Sitta", were burnt in the attack. They charged that the Batagram police was playing in the hands of the local JUI MNA. They said this act had put to shame all Muslims.
