A former Rajya Sabha member Mohammad Adeeb representing Gurgaon Muslim Council has moved the Supreme Court seeking contempt proceedings against officers of the Haryana government for failing to stop the disruption of Muslims’ Friday prayers by Hindutva groups.
The petition accessed by Maktoob has sought action against Chief Secretary Sanjeev Kaushal IAS and Director-General of Police PK Agrawak IPS.
Since April this year, there has been a constant rise in Hindutva attacks against the Friday prayers offered by Muslims in Gurgaon.
According to the petition, Haryana authorities have failed to comply with the directions issued by the Supreme Court in Tehseen S. Poonawalla Vs. Union of India & Ors. In the said case, the top court had issued a slew of directions in 2018 to control and prevent the increasing number of hate crimes, including mob violence and lynching.
“While presently only certain elements are carrying out a hateful campaign, the inaction of the police in preventing the said persons despite prior information repeatedly given by the present petitioner and others is contempt,” reads the petition filed by Adeeb, who lives in Gurgaon.
“This nefarious design being given effect to by propagation and dissemination of hateful content through social media platforms spreading false narratives, terming the performance of Friday Namaz, which is being done in the open due to compulsion and the same is permitted by the appropriate authorities in the circumstances as being illegal and in a manner of some sort of encroachment,” read the plea.
Gurgaon Muslim Council said it will initiate wider legal moves that would include approaching the high court on different aspects that they have brought up, like inadequate space to offer namaz and land not being available to build mosques.
Last Friday, when Hindutva activists again disrupted Muslims’ Friday prayer and raised anti-Muslim slogans, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar said that Friday prayer of Muslims should not be offered in the open and the practice “will not be tolerated.”
“This practice of offering namaz prayers here in the open, this will not be tolerated,” CM said to the reporters.
Khattar also announced that an earlier decision on where some sites had been reserved for the purpose of Muslims’ prayer had now been withdrawn.
Altaf Ahmad who represents the Gurgaon Muslim Council said in a press statement that Muslims of Gurgaon are forced to offer Friday prayer in open as Haryana Shahari Vikas Pradhikaran (HSVP) has not allocated land to them.
“Waqf Board and Administration have not been able to get Waqf Properties back from encroachers for a very long time. Now CM has said that 37 approved sites in open needs to be re-worked between Administration & Muslim Community, then we request him to instruct HSVP to allocate us land in multiple Sectors to build multistorey mosques and that shall be the end of Juma Namaz row,” Altaf said.
Altaf also claimed that all the applications of the Muslim community get rejected and earnest money refunded including their latest application submitted in October 2021.
“Kindly, vacate my mosques which have been occupied in Gurgaon. We would offer our prayer there,” in an interview with Maktoob, Haji Shahzad Khan, the imam who faced the Hindutva mob while making his way to the namaz site in Gurgaon, said.
