The offering of jumma namaz in Gurugram on Friday was marred by chaos and confusion after the district administration reduced the number of public spaces available to people for prayers.
Nearly 75% of open spaces where people used to offer namaz were made off limits by the administration after continued protests by right-wing organisations, which have demanded a ban on offering of prayers in open spaces.
Though no untoward incident was reported, right-wing outfits claimed that prayers were held at a few undesignated places, and disrupted traffic.
Rush for prayers
Several Muslim youths working at offices on Sohna Road and Unitech Cyber Park were stopped by the police from offering prayers on the pavements outside their offices.
Most of them had to rush to the ground opposite State Vigilance Bureau in Sector 47 — around two km away.
Many had to skip ablutions so they could join the congregation in time.
“We used to offer namaz near our office in Unitech Info Space on Sohna Road every Friday and sometimes even went to Rajiv Chowk. But the police on Friday told us to come to the ground in Sector 47. The prayers used to be over in 15-20 minutes, but now we need more time as we need to travel to and fro,” said Kamral Haq, who failed to reach the venue in time for prayers.
Another office-goer Parvez, who works at Spazedge, lamented that he would have to skip his lunch time to make the journey.
Aslam Khan, chairman of Anjuman Masjid in Sector 57, the lone mosque in New Gurugram, said that the number of devotees offering namaz at the place had almost doubled.
“Usually we hold two rounds of namaz in order to accommodate over a 1,000 people. But with several spots in the neighbourhood being made off limits, we had four rounds of namaz ,” said Mr. Khan.
Many caught unawares
Wajid Khan Nehru Yuva Sangathan Welfare Society chairman Hazid Shahzad Khan told The Hindu that many people were unaware about the merger of venues and faced a lot of problem and inconvenience.
“The namaz was offered at 47 places across the city. But there were instances of confusion over the exact location of the designated places in some cases,” said Mr. Khan. Several community members volunteered to guide people to the designated places.
Sanyukt Hindu Sangarsh Samiti executive committee member Rajiv Mittal alleged that namaz was offered at several undesignated places such as in Sector 10 and Khandsa village.
He said that a delegation of the samiti would soon call upon Deputy Commissioner Vinay Pratap Singh and demand a time limit for allowing namaz at open public spaces.
‘Fix time limit for’
“We had demanded that only five places should be allowed for namaz , but the administration allowed over two dozen. The administration needs to fix a time limit for use of these spaces for namaz,” said Mr. Mittal.
“Similarly, we noticed that the strength of Muslims went down at designated places despite fewer number of places. It indicates that illegal migrants perhaps stayed away from these congregations for fear of being identified,” he added.
The Deputy Commissioner, however, claimed that Muslims were not forced to merge places for prayer and Duty Magistrates were deployed at all 76 spots.
