Hindutva groups on Friday once again disrupted namaz at a park in Udyog Vihar in Haryana’s Gurugram.
Videos shared on social media showed them forcing people to chant “Bharat Mata ki Jai”.
“Why can’t you say it [Bharat Mata Ki Jai]?” one of the persons is heard asking those who arrived for the prayers. “Do you live in Pakistan?”
Later, the police arrived at the spot and held talks with both the groups, reported PTI.
Meanwhile, Muslims stayed away from Sector 37 grounds, which is one of the designated sites for namaz in Gurugram.
This particular namaz site has seen several disruptions over the last one month. Hindutva groups had protested on November 20 against Muslims offering prayers at Sector 37 ground, claiming that they wanted to play cricket there.
The groups had also organised a havan ceremony on November 26 at the site to mark the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks. They performed a Govardhan Puja in sector 12A.
“Namaz is going to stop in all of Gurugram very soon...What else?” Mufti Mohammad Saleem, the president of the local chapter of the Jamiat Ulema E-Hind, told Scroll.in on Friday. “These people are refusing to stop harassing us. From over 100 sites [for offering namaz], we are down to six and even then they are not content.”
On December 6, a meeting was held between the representatives of the Gurugram Imam Sangathan, the Muslim Rashtriya Manch, the Sanyukt Hindu Sangharsh Samiti and the district administration.
After the meeting, the Imam Sangathan said they will only offer prayers in six places.
The Udyog Vihar grounds, where prayers were disrupted on Friday, was one of them. The other five sites are Udyog Vihar (Peepal Chowk), in front of the Spice Jet office in Udyog Vihar, Leisure Valley, Golf Course Road and Sector 69.
“However now they are not even letting the namaz go on here peacefully,” said Saleem.
Hindutva groups have repeatedly blocked Muslims from gathering for Friday prayers in Gurugram for over two months now.
Giving in to demands of the Hindutva groups, the Gurugram district administration, in the last three months, has withdrawn permission for offering namaz at eight out of 37 public spaces that were designated for prayers.
On December 10, Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar had said that offering namaz in open spaces will not be tolerated.
Hindutva body Sanyukt Hindu Sangharsh Samiti’s leader Rajeev Mittal on Friday said things had changed after Khattar’s remarks.
“Now there can be not one place where namaz is offered,” he told Scroll.in. “Legal, illegal or whether there was an understanding beforehand...None of that matters.”
Altaf Ahmad, who works with the Gurugram Nagrik Ekta Manch, said neither the state government nor the district administration has offered any help.
“So the only option left now is the judiciary,” he told Scroll.in. “We have approached the Supreme Court with a contempt case against the administration and the police. We are expecting the case to be heard in the first week of January.”
On Thursday, former Rajya Sabha MP Mohammad Adeeb moved the Supreme Court seeking to initiate contempt proceedings against Haryana’s chief secretary and director general of police for allegedly not taking action against the Hindutva groups.
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