General secretary of the Sunni Ulema Council Haji Salees claimed that azaan concludes in just 3 minutes, and the pollution due to the 24-hour Akhand Path by Hindus is the real issue to be seen.
While speaking with the news agency ANI in Kanpur, Haji M Salees claimed, “Some Hindu forces are pushing the nation towards hatred, which is not justified. Our Azaan gets completed in 2-3 minutes, they have a problem with that as well. They don’t see (noise) pollution over their 24hr Akhand Path.”
He further claimed, “The atmosphere is such that there’s a problem if we wear skull caps, carry a beard, or wear a hijab, mob lynchings are happening. They have an eye on what we eat as well.”
Loudspeaker and azaan
On April 5, veteran singer Anuradha Paudwal expressed her views on the issue of playing Azaan on loudspeakers during an interview with Zee News. She was referring to the practice of playing Azaan on loudspeakers in Mosques across the country. She told that while traveling across the world, including Muslim nations, she noticed playing Azaan on loudspeakers is banned. On 2nd April 2022, Raj Thackeray warned that if the government is not going to decide anything about the loudspeakers in the mosques, he will put double loudspeakers in front of the mosques and chant Hanuman Chalisa.
In Karnataka, some Hindu groups have started to protest against the loudspeaker Azan by playing the Hanuman Chalisa through loudspeakers in the morning. Hindu activist and Sri Rama Sene chief Pramod Muthalik warned that if the government failed to remove loudspeakers from all the mosques, they would intensify their protest by singing bhajans using loudspeakers in temples.