Malerkotla Quran Sacrilege case: Charges framed against AAP Delhi MLA, three others by Sangrur court

PATIALA: A Sangrur court has framed charges against Naresh Yadav, an Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator representing Delhi’s Mehrauli constituency, and three others in the June 2016 Quran sacrilege case.
The court of judicial magistrate first class, Sangrur, Ajay Mittal, ordered that charges be framed under against Yadav under Sections 153A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion), 295A (deliberate and malicious acts intended to outrage religious feelings) and 120B (criminal conspiracy) of the Indian Penal Code.
The other three accused, Vijay Kumar from Jind (Haryana), Nand Kishore and Gaurav Kumar from Tarn Taran (Punjab), are also facing charges under Section 124A (sedition) along with those faced by Yadav in the case. The Punjab government had granted sanction for their prosecution in sedition case in August last year.
According to Yadav’s counsel Narpal Singh Dhaliwal, the district and session court Sangrur had dropped only the sedition charge against Yadav in October last year. The court had stated that from the facts and figures presented before the court, a sedition case was not made out against Naresh Yadav, who was arrested by the Punjab police in July 2016 after Vijay Kumar, the prime accused in the case, had named him as the mastermind of the conspiracy.
Yadav has been out on the bail after he was remanded in police custody on July 24, 2016 for two days and had later remained in the judicial custody till August 1.
On June 24, 2016, torn pages of the Quran were found scattered on a road in Muslim-dominated Malerkotla town of Sangrur. This had led to violence and burning of vehicles by an angry mob. Yadav was one of four people to be arrested in the case. The police had claimed that three others had confessed to their crime and Vijay had revealed that he wanted to “take revenge for Dinanagar and Pathankot terrorist attacks.”
The court of judicial magistrate first class, Ajay Mittal has now fixed July 3 as the next date of hearing when the case will be taken up for evidence.