About 500 Hindu activists on Monday took to the streets to demand a ban on the act of offering Namaz on open spaces and government land, performed without taking prior administrative permission, as reported by Times of India. Besides this, the outfits also demanded the scrapping of FIR against six men who were arrested for ‘disrupting’ a Friday Namaz supposedly being offered on government land.
With regards to the FIR, the six individuals were arrested by the Gurugram Police last Thursday after a video of them trying to ‘disrupt’ the outdoor Namaz, went viral on social media.
They were granted bail on Sunday as the police didn’t follow proper procedure before filing the case. The court also observed that prior permission was not given for conducting these prayers on the land owned by the government.
As per a former Gurugram Bar Association president – Kulbhushan Bharadwaj, the Namaz was being conducted on government land near a temple without permission from authorities. He also claimed that the police had admitted to the Namaz organisers not taking prior permission.
He also alleged that prayer offering group had chanted pro-Pakistan slogans, which was opposed to by the arrested youths. Bharadwaj thus alleged that the police acted in a biased manner and only took action against the protesting youths.
With regards to this episode, the Hindu protesters marched from the Kamla Nehru Park in the city to the Mini Secretariat, where a letter was given to the additional deputy commissioner, asking him to forward it to Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar.
As per reports, the said letter alleged that land was being illegally occupied in pretext of reading prayers, for about one and a half months. It also alleged they were vitiating the communal atmosphere by chanting provocative slogans, and questioned as to why action was taken against some patriotic youths who tried to put a stop to it.
The groups thus demanded that Namaz should only be allowed on open lands or land owned by the government without prior permission. With regards to the permission they demanded that it should only be given in areas where Muslim population is in the excess of 50%.