Meer Faisal and Abdul Momin report:
At least thirty Hindutva activists were detained in Gurugram on Friday after they protested against the offering of namaz in a locality.
Hindutva groups have been protesting against Muslims praying in public places in Gurugram’s Sector 47 for over a month now. Last Friday, the Hindutva mob disrupted the offering of namaz in the city’s Sector 12A locality.
The disruption continued for this week as well. Even after imposing 144 and deploying around 500 police officers on the Namaz spot, the administration could not completely stop the chaos. The slogans of “Jai Shree Ram” and the voices against the Muslims could be heard clearly.
The strength of the Muslims was seen as lesser than usual due to the Islamophobic atmosphere.
“The place is under Municipal cooperation, and they have allotted us this place to offer Namaz,” Haji Mustafa told Maktoob. Haji had played an important role in getting the same issue of the Namaz land solved in 2018. At that time, it was decided that the administration would provide 37 open spaces for the Friday Namaz. Both Sector 12 and Sector 47 markets fall under those allotted spaces.
Speaking to Maktoob SDM Anita Chaudhary said: “People have offered namaz in 37 designated places (and) full protection will be given to them.” She also assured that the administration is negotiating with them and the harmony will be kept maintained.
While talking to Raju Bhardwaj, one of the locals present there, Maktoob got some disturbing responses. “Hamare Hinduwo me Ekta nahi hai, agar hamare hinduo me ekta hoti to ye ek bhi log (Muslims) ikatha nahi ho paate.” (There is no unity among our Hindus. If there were unity among our Hindus, then not a single people (Muslims) would have gathered.”), said Bhardwaj.
Another similar incident had happened with Imaam of Jharsa, Sector 40, recently. Sharing the ordeal of the last week’s incident, Abdul Haseeb told Maktoob that two Hindu men had followed him on Friday. They asked him to stop offering Namaz in Sector 40. They further stated that they would make sure all the Namaz offerings get stopped in the Gurugram. The duo forcefully asked the Muslim man to chant “Jai Shri Ram.”
Fearfully, Haseeb had to repeat the chant with them and then filled the FIR later on. The culprits were arrested and then got released in a matter of time, surprisingly.
On Tuesday, Sanyukt Hindu Sangharsh Samiti – an umbrella body of 22 Hindutva organisations – had submitted a memo to the Gurugram deputy commissioner demanding that the district administration stop Muslims from offering namaz in public places on Fridays.
But Muslims said they were forced to offer namaz in the open because the authorities had not given them enough land to build mosques.
