In a recent development, the Noida police have issued an advisory notice to companies in sector 58, asking their administrations to dissuade their employees from visiting nearby parks for offering namaz. The police asserted that the companies must ensure that their officials use office premises or mosques for Namaz but not public places.
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Sector 58 to sector 62 in Noida house multinational and national IT companies. According to a report by Times Now, Muslim employees of these companies located in sector 58 used to assemble together and offer namaz in the nearby park. Earlier, the group had 20-25 regular members but then the number soared to more than 300. As the congregation of such a large group in a public place created concern for the officials, as per the report, a gruop of employees had apprached the District Magistrate for permission but the DM did not grant them the permission to offer namaz in the park. Despite this, on December 14, the Muslim employees had again gathered to offer namaz in the park.
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While speaking to OpIndia, Noida police representative said, ” The group of people who were employees of multinational IT companies used to offer namaz in nearby parks in sector 58, they approached the district magistrate to seek the permission to offer their prayers in the park but the magistrate didn’t grant them the approval for the congregation in public.”
He further added that despite district magistrate’s denial, the employees of these companies continued to offer namaz in the park. It is then that the Noida police intervened to uphold district magistrate order and issued an advisory to the companies to ask their employees to refrain from offering namaz in the parks. “The advisory pertains to this case alone and the companies in the sector 58. This shouldn’t be misconstrued as a blanket ban on offering namaz in public places across UP or Noida. We were simply upholding district magistrate orders,” he added.
The order issued by the Noida police to the companies cites the district magistrate’s order that ‘No religious activities’ including namaz can be offered in the authority parks. The police also added that namaz should be offered in Mosques and Idgahs.
Earlier, Haryana CM Manohar Lal Khattar had evoked critical reactions from people when he said that namaz should be offered in their designated places such as mosques and idgahs and not in public.