Confusing versions on defaced pages

Conflicting versions are surfacing about the alleged defaced pages of a religious book that led to widespread violence at Masuri and Dasna in Ghaziabad last week.

Conflicting versions are surfacing about the alleged defaced pages of a religious book that led to widespread violence at Masuri and Dasna in Ghaziabad last week.

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Locals who saw the defaced Quran suspect that some of the pages recovered on September 14 may have gone missing in the melee when there was mob buildup at the Masuri police station.

Others say several pages were again discovered on September 15, which have now been kept under seal at the Rafikabad mosque.

Abdul Qadir, muezzin at the Rafikabad mosque said that some pages of para 9, 10 were taken to the police station on the evening of September 14. "When we were filing our complaint, I handed them over to chairman Sajid Hussain of the Dasna Nagar Panchayat. Later, they went missing during the mob build-up," he said.

Hussain said when he was trying to pacify the mob, he gave the pages to "someone" as the locals were not ready to hand them over to the police. "These could not be traced later," he said.

In the FIR, the police have also maintained that the locals did not hand over the pages to them.

On September 15, several other pages were allegedly found again but locals have different versions on their discovery.

"When the September 14 pages went missing, I told locals to search for them. Several pages were found again on the next day but these were not related to para 9 and 10. These were found by Qadir the next day," Hussain said.

Qadir said some locals found these 'new' pages from the railway tracks and brought them to the mosque.

Jali-ur-Rehman, father of Muti-ur-Rehman - the man who accompanied Qadir to police station on September 14, however claimed that the pages found on September 15 were among the ones recovered on September 14. "Some of these were taken to police station while some were left behind at the mosque."

The police officials, however, remained tight-lipped. Jagdish Sharma, SP (rural) said,"The matter is under investigation and nothing can be said right now."