LAHORE: Police arrested a man for allegedly desecrating pages of the Holy Quran at Gulshan-i-Ravi on Sunday.

Humayun Faisal Masih has been booked in a case lodged by Syed Zeeshan under 295-B (Defiling, desecrating etc. of Holy Quran) of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The suspect is a resident of Dhoop Sarri area of Sanda and he allegedly set a box on fire that contained holy script pages. A number of people started gathering at the Ravi Road police station and demanded that he be handed over to them. Police dispersed the crowd which then made for the suspect’s house, where it tried to torch a church.

Also read: Partial strike in Sindh over alleged Quran desecration

As DIG Operations Dr Haider Ashraf and other policemen tried to disperse the mob, some miscreants attacked and injured them. A policeman told this reporter that the mob was enraged and wanted to torch a church but police controlled the situation. Police also registered a case against the assailants and arrested some of them.

He said police responded to an emergency call that a man was burning pages of the Holy Quran. He said police took Humayun into custody and also recovered the box which was partially burnt and contained sacred pages. He said the box was installed at a pole at Gulshan-i-Ravi.

Published in Dawn, May 25th, 2015

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