From Vacant Ground To Mosque: Offering Namaz In Gurugram Not An Easy Task

It seems that the controversy over offering Namaz has made Gurugram its permanent abode. Even though the earlier waves of protests against Friday prayers of Muslims have hardly been subsided, a severe attack in one of the Mosques in the city’s Bhora Kalan area has agsin shocked the people.

A mob of at least 200 people reportedly yesterday entered the premises of a mosque in the area, vandalised the premises, had beaten up the people and threatened to kill them, India Today reported. After storming over it, the mob ran away locking the door from outside.

Subedar Nazar Mohammad, who later lodged a complaint in the Bilaspur Police station said that there are only four Muslim families living in Bhora Kalan locality. During Maghrib (the evening prayer) when they were offering Namaz, the attackers barged into the premises and ravaged it. The miscreants not only hit them, rather they asked them to leave the area as soon as possible.

The Police has filed a case under IPC sections 295-A (deliberately outraging religious beliefs), 323 (voluntarily causing hurt), 506 (criminal intimidation), 147 (rioting), 148 (rioting by carrying weapons). They have identified Rajesh Chauhan, Anil Bhadauria, and Sanjay Vyas as the main accused.

Gurugram boiling over Namaz controversy

This is not for the first time, Gurugram is in the news for all the wrong reasons. Last year, the city witnessed continuous protests by the residents of Sector 47 against offering of Friday Namaz in a designated ground.

As per the media reports, the residents belonging to Residential Welfare Association (RWA) hurled several allegations ranging from land encroachment to identity fraud agsinst the worshippers. In a few instances they had even referred to them as terrorists.

The regular protests that went on for almost two months were stalled in between by the Police promising a solution. Meanwhile Namaz went on by shifting places in the presence of heavy police forces. The situation went out of hand when the residents played bhajan at the spot on October 15 and tried to disrupt the peaceful worshippers.

As per the reports of Indian Express, the site in the sector 47 was one of those 37 designated open sites for Namaz in the city that were negotiated after the disruptions in 2018.

During this controversy the Chief Minister of Haryana Manohar Lal Khattar also supported the worshippers and said that no one should disrupt the prayers and residents should let offer Namaz in the designated sites.

However, no assurance from even the CM worked as after discussions with the RWA and the protestors, the administration in December took the decision to reduce the number of designated sites from 37 to 6. Since December, people of Gurugram have been offering Namaz only in those 6 sites apart from a very few Masjids.

Offering Namaz in the Vacant ground is Compulsion, Not an Encroachment Blueprint

On December 3, the situation was further worsened as Sanyukt Hindu Sangharsh Samiti, a group of 22 local units of Hindu organisations declared that deadline for Namaz is over and they wouldn’t allow the Muslims to offer the prayers from December 10. They were referring to the earlier deadline they gave to the administration for coming out with a solution.

The protesting groups then started using extremely offensive and hateful languages against the worshippers leading to Rjaya Sabha MP Mohammad Adeeb filing a petition to the Supreme Court seeking contempt procedure against the competent authorities who remained mute spectator in front of the violent communal assertions.

The petition filed through the senior advocate Indira Jaising noted that by staying inactive, the administration and the Police forces violated the 2018 verdict of SC (Tehseen S. Poonawalla vs Union Of India) that mandated the authorities to refrain from being mute spectator in front of communal violence and asked them to take action against hate crimes.

Taking note of the crisis then the Chief Justice of India N V Ramana on January 31 accepted the petition and promised that he would refer the case to an appropriate bench. The petition of Jaising clearly mentioned that the Namaz was carried due to compulsion and there was no encroachment motive behind it as propagated through social media and other communal campaigns.

However, the top court is yet to hear the petition.

While the vacant ground for the Muslims in Gurugram was not safe for offering Namaz, yesterday’s incident has made them vulnerable within the Mosque premises as well. Further investigation is on to identify the miscreants and their motive.