Torn pages of a “gutka” and Hanuman Chalisa were found scattered on a road in Chandan Nagar and its surrounding localities early this morning.
Sikhs in large number gathered at the spot and collected the torn pages.
The police identified seven minor children aged between 12 and 14, who reportedly got the religious sculptures lying under a tree and scattered these on the road without knowing about its implication.
Police Commissioner Jatinder Singh Aulakh said six minor boys of Kundanpuri locality were arrested. “We identified them from a CCTV footage recovered from cameras installed in the locality. The remaining one has also been identified and raids are on to nab him,” he added.
Aulakh said the boys were living in shanties near Chandar Nagar and were illiterate. “During questioning, the boys said they were unaware of the religious sculptures. They thought that these were discarded books and tore these,” he added.
Sources said the nabbed boys were addicts and they committed the crime under the influence of some intoxicants. They said they would take part in wedding processions and see people throwing away money, so they tried to imitate them by tearing and throwing away pages of religious books. They would be produced in the juvenile court tomorrow.
Meanwhile, the residents, though resentful of the sacrilege incident, did not resort to any protest and cooperated with the police.
Iqbal Singh, a resident of Pritam Nagar who first noticed the torn pages, said he had gone for a walk at 5.30 am when he noticed some pages of a “gutka” scattered outside Gauri Apartments. He informed other residents.
“As we started collecting the pages, we were shocked to see that the torn pages were scattered on the entire stretch leading towards the Dasehra ground,” he said.
Last year on November 9, torn pages of Gita and related text were found from Deep Nagar, Chander Nagar and Green Field areas. The police had then rounded up four minor boys from the Civil City area who were allegedly involved in the incident. They, too, were caught tearing the pages on a CCTV camera.
