Malerkotla Quran sacrilege: Ranjit panel never contacted me, says Delhi AAP MLA

SANGRUR : Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) legislator from New Delhi’s Mehrauli, Naresh Yadav, who was booked by the Sangrur police in connection with the Malerkotla Quran sacrilege incident, on Monday claimed that the Justice Ranjit Singh inquiry commission ignored Malerkotla incidents.

The panel was formed by the Congress government in Punjab to probe incidents of sacrilege of Guru Granth Sahib and other religious texts.

The MLA was here for a hearing in the case. It will come up for next hearing on May 21.

“The commission has probed different incidents of sacrilege but did not approach me. If they were willing to investigate the case, they must have contacted me. I have not received any call from them,” Yadav said.

“The case was completely politically motivated and the then Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) government implicated me in a false case to defame our party which was surging ahead of the assembly elections in the state.

However, the new government is also not interested in arresting the actual culprits behond the incident,” he said.

Yadav’s advocate and Dirba MLA, Harpal Singh Cheema said the case holds no ground and the state has failed to prove allegations and demanding time of file prosecution sanction.

“It was a political case which was concocted by SAD-BJP government. It is more disappointing that the commission formed by congress government has not started work on Quran sacrilege incident. We demand that the commission should probe this incident,” said Dirba MLA Advocate Harpal Cheema.

Vijay Kumar, the main accused of June 24 burning of Quran and resultant violence in Muslim-dominated Malerkotla, had earlier claimed that he did it at the behest of Yadav whom he claimed to be his friend.

The Mehrauli MLA was arrested for his suspected role in the alleged desecration on June 24, 2017.

In November last year, Vijay Kumar took a U-turn by alleging that police forced him to name Yadav in the case.