The Uttar Pradesh Police registered a case against 26 people for offering namaz together in a house in Moradabad district. The police said they were praying without prior permission from local authorities and called it an “unlawful assembly.”
The village does not have a masjid, so people gathered at a house to offer their prayers.
The case had been filed on the complaint of a local named Chandra Pal Singh, who said he was against people offering mass namaz at home. Police cited “objections from neighbours” and booked the worshippers under IPC Section 505-2 — for mischievous statements in a gathering performing religious worship.
“Scores of people assembled at the house of two local villagers in Dulhepur village in the Chhajlet area without any notice and offered prayers. They had been cautioned in the past not to indulge in such a practice at home, following objections from neighbours belonging to another community,” the Superintendent of Police, Sandeep Kumar Meena, said.
Injustice, Says Owaisi
Reacting to the incident, All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen (AIMIM) MP Asaduddin Owaisi said that objection to offering namaz at home is injustice.
“Supreme Court has said that ‘namaz’ can be offered anywhere. Why is there an objection to offering ‘namaz’ at home? This is injustice,” news agency ANI quoted Owaisi as saying.
Hawan Would Have Been Perfectly Acceptable
“I’m sure if one of the neighbours had a hawan with 26 friends and relatives that would be perfectly acceptable. It’s not the ‘mass gathering’ that is the problem; it’s the offering of namaz,” tweeted Omar Abdullah, former chief minister of Jammu and Kashmir.
In the past few months, many incidents have been reported of right-wing groups objecting to Muslims offering namaz.
Some Bajrang Dal men recently protested against some Muslims offering namaz at a shopping mall personnel in Bhopal by reading the Hanuman Chalisa. A similar incidence occurred a few weeks ago at a mall in Lucknow. Later, all religious activities were outlawed in both malls.
