BELAGAVI: In a disturbing incident, unidentified miscreants desecrated copies of the Quran and Hadith kept at a mosque in Santi Bastwad village on the outskirts of Belagavi. The religious texts were found at an under-construction site next to the mosque.
The incident came to light early Monday morning when people came to the mosque to pray and found the Quran and Hadith missing from the ground floor of the mosque. After searching, they found the holy books in the plot. The situation quickly became tense at Santi Bastwad and adjoining areas.
Belagavi Police Commissioner Iada Martin and DCP (Law and order) Rohan Jagadish rushed to the spot and arranged heavy police bandobast to prevent the situation from going out of control.
A large number of Muslim youth protested in front of police officials, demanding that the culprits be arrested within two days. They said previous similar incidents had not led to any arrests as the police had not taken stringent measures.
The protesting youth wanted to march from Chennamma Circle to the DC’s office. When the police denied permission for protest at Chennamma Circle and instead told them to hold their march near Visvesvaraya Technological University premises the protesters shouted slogans and blocked the Belagavi-Goa road near VTU.
Within a few minutes, hundreds of people gathered and marched from Santi Bastawad to Rani Chennamma Circle, a distance of 8 km, shouting slogans like “Bharat Mata Ki Jai”. A tense situation prevailed at Chennamma Circle, and roads leading to the circle were blocked as a precaution. The nearly one-hour protest caused traffic jams on several connecting roads.
Two months ago, Santi Bastwad had experienced communal tension after a Hindu girl eloped with a Muslim youth on February 22.
The girl’s mother had filed a kidnapping case, but it came to light later that the girl had eloped willingly.