Bikeborne men throw meat inside mosque, kill cleric

A 70-year-old maulvi, Mohammad Younus, was shot dead by four unidentified persons when he intercepted them after they threw a piece of meat on the premises of a mosque in Naseerpur village of Mau district (110km from Varanasi), late on Thursday night.

Younus was the maulvi of the mosque where he was killed, police said. The murder enraged locals and sparked tension in the village. They calmed down after police assured them speedy action in the case.

Police said the assailants came on two motorbikes and threw a piece of meat on the mosque premises. Younus and one Mohammad Jabbar, who had just offered prayers, took on the miscreants. The assailants then fired at them. Younus died on the spot but Jabbar escaped unhurt. Hearing the gunshots, locals rushed to the spot but the miscreants had fled by then. The locals then informed police.

Circle officer Pankaj Singh, along with a heavy police force, reached the spot and took the body for post-mortem.

Singh said a case had been registered against unidentified assailants and teams had been deployed to arrest them. “Heavy police force and provincial armed constabulary (PAC) personnel were deployed in the village to control the situation,” Singh said.