PESHAWAR: A local court has rejected bail plea of a doctor arrested on charges of desecration of the Holy Quran in Hayatabad Township last month.

An additional sessions judge, Tilla Mohammad, observed that during course of inquiry, the accused-petitioner was traced from his motorcar, which was taken from CCTV footage of the occurrence.

The judge observed that the accused-petitioner after his arrest rightly pointed out the place of occurrence where he admitted he had thrown away by desecrating the copies of the Holy Quran.

It was observed that in those circumstances there was a link between the accused and the commission of the offence, which was not an ordinary act rather it mainly disturbed the sentiments of Muslims.

“Hence, on the basis of tentative assessment and on the basis of recovery memo available on file accused/petitioner is found linked with the commission of the offence. Resultantly, the instant bail petition is hereby dismissed,” the court ruled.

The FIR of the alleged occurrence was registered at Hayatabad police station under section 295-B (defiling of copy of the Holy Quran) of Pakistan Penal Code on Jan 30, 2025.

The accused is charged with throwing copies of the Holy Quran in a dustbin near Hayatabad police station.

Complainant in the FIR was ASI Tariqullah, who said that a video had gone viral on social media about the occurrence after which they had started an inquiry on Jan 24 by registering the case in a daily diary.

He stated that subsequently the suspect was traced and he admitted that he had thrown copies of the Holy Quran in the bin.

An official at Hayatabad Police station, who didn’t want to be named, said that apparently the act of the suspect was not intentional. However, he added even if he had no intention of desecration of the Holy Quran, his act couldn’t be condoned.

Published in Dawn, February 9th, 2025