CHENAB NAGAR, Chiniot: Police booked five people from the Ahmadiyya community on charges of blasphemy and arrested one of them on Saturday night for publishing and distributing an ‘altered’ version of the Urdu translation of the Holy Quran. Following the arrest, hundreds of people from Ahmadiyya community held a protest demonstration outside the police station in Chenab Nagar.

The alleged desecration of the Holy Quran took place almost four years ago but the first information report was filed against the printer, publisher, author, composer, proofreader and some other unidentified facilitators under sections 295-B (defiling copy of Holy Quran), 295-C (derogatory remarks against the Holy Prophet PBUH) of the Pakistan Penal Code and Section 9-1 of the Code of the Punjab Holy Quran (Printing and Recording) Act, 2011.

According to the complainant Muhammad Hasan Muawiya, the secretary general of the Tahaffuz Khatm-e-Nabuwat Forum, the incident dates back four years against which he had also filed a constitutional petition. The FIR adds that the Lahore High Court had ordered relevant departments to take action against such publishers in its March 2019 order.

According to the complaint, the suspects distributed the altered holy books at a ceremony held on March 7, 2019.

“The event was held on the lawns of Nusrat Jahan College for Women where 62 boys and girls were given copies of the altered version in clear violation of the relevant laws,” it stated.

It stated that the altered version was also banned by the Punjab Home Department in 2016. The Chiniot DPO office had sent an email to Chenab Nagar Police with Hasan Muawiya’s request and a letter from the Punjab Quran Board Secretary Umar Daraz.

In it, the police was ordered to register an FIR of the case and to investigate the case while taking appropriate action against those accused.

After learning about the new development in the case on Saturday night, hundreds of people from the Ahmadiyya community protested outside the police station against the FIR and the arrest of their member.

It resulted in traffic delays for several hours on the Chiniot-Sargodha road.

A spokesman for the Ahmadiyya community said that the case was ‘yet another attempt to implicate its members in fabricated cases across the country’.

It warrants mention that Chenab Nagar is also known as Rabwah, and it serves as the headquarters of the Ahmaddiya community.