PATIALA: A Sangrur court on Tuesday acquitted two accused, including Aam Aadmi Party’s (AAP) Delhi legislator, in the 2016 Malerkotla Quran sacrilege case, citing lack of legal evidence, and sentenced convicts Vijay Kumar and Gaurav Kumar to two years’ rigorous imprisonment (RI) and a fine of Rs 11,000 each.
Additional chief judicial magistrate (ACJM) Prashant Verma sentenced Vijay Kumar of Jind, who was living in Delhi before the sacrilege incident, to two years’ rigorous imprisonment each under Section 295A of the Indian Penal Code (Deliberate and malicious acts, intended to outrage religious feelings of any class by insulting its religion or religious beliefs) and for six months under Section 120-B (criminal conspiracy). Gaurav Kumar of Pathankot was also similarly sentenced.
All sentences will run concurrently and the period of detention already undergone will be set off against substantive sentences awarded. Kishore of Pathankot was the second accused to be acquitted.
The Quran sacrilege took place in Malerkotla town of Sangrur on the night of June 24, 2016, and a case was registered on June 25, 2016, under various IPC sections at Malerkotla city 1 police station in Sangrur district.
The court, however, later dropped the sedition charges. On June 27, the police arrested three persons -- Vijay Kumar, Gaurav Kumar and Nand Kishore -- while Naresh Yadav, MLA of Mehrauli in Delhi, was named in the case in July 2016 on the basis of Vijay’s statement.
AAP’s leader of opposition in Punjab assembly Harpal Singh Cheema said that the Akali-BJP government had implicated Naresh Yadav under a conspiracy.
"People of Punjab were opposing Akali-BJP and supporting the AAP. That is why the Akali government, with the intention of maligning the AAP, filed a false case of desecration against the AAP leader and tried to tarnish the party’s image," he said. Cheema said the Captain Amarinder Singh-appointed Justice Ranjit Singh (retd) commission had also said in its report that Yadav had nothing to do with the case.
After the verdict, Yadav told the media that "truth has won today". He alleged that Vijay Kumar, whom he didn’t even know, was asked to implicate him under a conspiracy, but they could not present any evidence against him in the court.