The NEWS: Five days after the torching down of the chipboard factory and looting of workers’ houses and offices, about four kilometres from Jhelum on G.T. Road, by a violent mob, the smoke was still billowing from its warehouse and fire-fighting vehicles were still at work.
On November 20, some workers of the chipboard factory, owned by a local from the Ahmadi community, alleged that the factory’s security officer Qamar Ahmad Tahir (also an Ahmadi) had burnt copies of the Holy Quran in the furnace.
According to the First Information Report (FIR), complainant Basharat Husain, a driver with the factory for almost four years, saw that paper trash packed in sacks came on a vehicle and the security in-charge ordered two workers to burn it in the furnace. While it was being thrown in the furnace, the workers noticed Quranic pages in it. The situation led to an argument and the police had to be called in. Following which the FIR was lodged.
By evening, announcements were made from local mosques that the owner and the workers had burnt the Quran. Soon, outrage spread in the nearby villages. Following this, people not only from the vicinity but nearby villages gathered as a mob and set ablaze the chipboard factory. The houses and the offices of the factory were destroyed, looted and burnt.