Delhi AAP MLA Naresh Yadav to be grilled on July 5; summons issued for Malerkotla Quran sacrilege

Malerkotla July 4The Punjab Police have summoned Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) member of legislative assembly (MLA) in Delhi, Naresh Yadav, to join the investigation in connection with the Quran sacrilege case at Malerkotla on June 24.

Yadav has been booked under Sections 109 (punishment of abetment if the act abetted is committed in consequence and where no express provision is made for its punishment) and 153-A (promoting enmity between different groups on grounds of religion, race, place of birth, residence, language, etc, and doing acts prejudicial to maintenance of harmony) of the IPC after the main accused Vijay Kumar, a Delhi-based businessman, named the MLA and the police found corroborative evidence against him.

“He has been asked to appear on July 5 at 11 am at the CIA office in Sangrur, which is handling the case,” said senior superintendent of police (SSP) Prithpal Singh Thind.

Thind said, Yadav would be brought face to face with Kumar and quizzed. Kumar had reportedly told the police that he had met Yadav on June 24 morning, the day he left for Punjab to commit the crime.

Yadav, who represents Mehrauli (South) in the Delhi assembly, was named as one of the conspirators by the main accused on Saturday, a day before Delhi chief minister and AAP leader Arvind Kejriwal is beginning a three-day tour of Punjab.

The MLA has, however, denied the charges, saying it was a conspiracy to malign the party’s image ahead of the assembly polls.

He said the police had cooked up a story to defame the AAP. He, however, remained incommunicado in the evening, when the police issued summons to him.

A mob set some vehicles afire and damaged property of the local MLA after some pages of the Quran were found torn outside a cemetery in Malerkotla. Some policemen were among those injured in a clash with the mob.