MARGAO
Tension rent the air at the Jamia Masjid at Malbhat after a group assaulted two persons, Mainuddin Shaikh and Sheikh Aslam on Friday noon.
The police have named around 16 persons as accused in the case. Two persons including Salim Sheikh and Bashir Sheikh have so far been arrested in the case.
BJP spokesman Urfan Mulla has charged that the group has attacked Mainuddin and Aslam Shaikh just because they worked for BJP candidate Manohar Ajgaonkar in the Assembly election for the Margao seat. In fact, Mulla has warned that the BJP government would not allow the accused persons to go scot free after the incident.
Aslam Sheikh told the media after the incident that he was attacked by the mob at the Masjid after he questioned them for assaulting Mainuddin Shaikh, a resident of Ambaji-Fatorda. “When I questioned them over the assault on Mainuddin, they just pounced on me, attacking me from all sides. They were armed with iron rods and knuckle dusters,” he said.
Aslam told the media that he and his father and grandfather had been praying at the Jamia Masjid, Malbhat for years now and questioned the audacity of the group of persons for launching an attack on him.
In the FIR, the police has alleged that the 16 persons hatched a criminal conspiracy, and formed an unlawful assembly in pursuant of their common object and abused, assaulted the complainant with fist blows, slaps and kicks on the body and threatening with dire consequences the complainant and Aslam Shaikh, thereby committing rioting over the issues of Masjid committee.
Offences under section 120-B, 143, 147, 504, 323, 506 r/w 149 of Indian Penal Code stands registered against the accused persons.
