Ishfaq-ul-Hassan
SRINAGAR—Heart-wrenching scenes were witnessed after authorities did not allow devotees to enter Jamia Masjid on Friday.
Congregational prayers were again disallowed at the historic Jamia Masjid on Friday. Women broke down after they were not permitted to enter the mosque. Devotees from far-flung areas had arrived in the old Srinagar city hoping to offer prayers at Jamia Masjid after a long time.
Anjuman Auqaf Jama Masjid said state authorities did not allow congregational Friday prayers at Jama Masjid today.
“Heavy deployment of forces was carried out since early morning in the entire area,” Auquf said.
Anjuman said police personnel forced its employees to close the gates of the mosque.
“A large group of ‘namazis’ including women and children who had gathered outside the mosque strongly protested this authoritarian move and demanded that they be allowed to go inside to offer prayers,” it said.
Anjuman said that the excuse of the Covid pandemic to prevent Muslims from offering Friday prayers at Jamia Masjid stands completely exposed today.
“It is regrettable and disdainful of the authorities to disallow Muslims of the valley from praying at the Central mosque by use of brute force and cause then hurt and grief. Muslims of the valley denounce this injustice and interference in religious freedom in strongest terms,” Anjuman said.
This is not the first time when Jamia Masjid has been shut for prayers. The mosque was locked for successive 17 weeks post-August 5, 2019, when the Centre revoked the special status of Jammu and Kashmir. During the 2016 unrest, no Friday prayers could be held for 16 weeks in the historic Jamia Masjid at Nowhatta area in the Old Srinagar city.
Mirwaiz Umar Farooq, the chief cleric of Kashmir and chairman of the moderate Hurriyat Conference, has been under house arrest since August 5, 2019.
On August 25, Anjuman Aufaq Jamia Masjid commemorated the 32nd anniversary of operation Jamia Masjid, when men in uniform ransacked the central mosque. On a fateful day in 1989, forces entered the mosque when most of the Namzis had left. Three hundred people were detained and taken to police camps. Later 270 were released and 30 arrested.
During Sikh rule, the mosque was closed for 21 years. According to Wikipedia, the mosque faced closure under the Sikh regime of Maharaja Ranjit Singh beginning in 1819 AD, when the then Governor of Srinagar, Moti Ram, put curbs on offering prayers in Jamia Masjid.
Jamia Masjid is not the only religious place that has witnessed upheaval. Earlier Sufi Shrine of Hazrat Sheikh Noor-ud-din Noorani at Charar-e-Sharief was gutted in a gunfight between militants led by Pakistani `Major’ Mast Gul and the army in 1995. The entire Township was razed to the ground, but Mast Gul mysteriously escaped from the scene and crossed the LoC into PoK.
