Friday prayers not allowed for tenth consecutive week: Jama Masjid management body

Srinagar: The management committee of the Jamia Masjid in Nowhatta here alleged that the Jammu and Kashmir administration did not allow Friday prayers for the tenth consecutive week.

Anjuman Auqaf Jamia Masjid in a statement said the authorities once again disallowed Friday prayers at the central mosque for the 10th consecutive Friday and also put Mirwaiz-e-Kashmir Muhammad Umar Farooq, who delivers the Friday sermon there, under house detention.

The Anjuman said that no reason is provided by the authorities for these restrictions and curbs.

Meanwhile, the Mirwaiz condemned the repeated closure of the mosque on Fridays and his “arbitrary on-off detention”, including on Fridays.

“All claims of so-called normalcy by rulers fall flat by such anti-people measures. I fail to understand why the central Jamia Masjid was being targeted again and again unless it is to cause grief to the Muslims of the valley and show them their place in Naya Kashmir,” the statement said.

The Mirwaiz has said that the in-charge "rulers" should stop playing with the Muslims' religious sentiments and let them offer prayers in their mosques without hindrance.

“People’s silence and endurance of brazen attacks on their religious rights should not be mistaken as their weakness to respond,” he said.