Muslim Council looking to negotiate for mosque land

gurugram: With Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar now pressing hard to stop public Namaz in Gurugram, the Gurugram Muslim Council has now decided to approach the district administration to purchase land for larger mosques to accommodate the local Muslims in the city.

Prominent members of the Muslim groups, that have already decried the purported agreement arrived at with the district administration, plan to negotiate for providing them with land where a multi storey mosques, which if built would result in no public spaces being utilised for prayers.

According to Gurugram Muslim Council there are 13 mosques only in Gurugram District and only two mosques in new Gurugram area where most of the six lakh Muslim locals are based. Citing that there is shortage of spaces for these devotees to offer Namaz, the Muslim groups want to purchase public land from the authorities so that there can be a final solution to this hurdle.

The objective of this mosque as per Gurugram Muslim Council is to accommodate thousands of devotees as compared to hundreds that are presently going to mosques or Idgah for offering of Friday Namaz.

The Muslim council have urged for public land as some of the private lands where mosques are built have been under litigation. Moreover, most of the Waqf board land in Gurugram have been encroached as per Gurugram Muslim Council and as of now has still not been cleared by the Gurugram District Administration.

But according to sources, the Gurugram District Administration is yet to commit to any negotiation over selling any public plot of land for building mosques.

The Gurugram District Administration had presented a proposal of offering six public spaces to Muslim devotees for offering of Friday Namaz on rental basis last week in addition to the 12 mosques and waqf properties already available to them. Though this proposal was acceptable to Sanyukta Sangharsh Hindu Samiti (SHSS) and certain Muslim groups, most Muslim civil society organisations have said this Muslim did not represent the interests of local Muslims.

But after months of antagonizing and intimidating local Muslims and preventing them from praying on land designated for the purpose, in a desperate bid to change the way they are perceived, SHSS chief Mahaveer Bharadwaj has now offered some private spaces for Muslim devotees till the time the Waqf properties are cleared of encroachments.

While CM Khattar had earlier said no one should disturb prayers once it has been allowed at a certain spot, he changed this view last week, saying that public Namaz will not be tolerated in his state.

Last Friday too, Hindu groups disrupted Namaz at two of the designated Namaz sites in Gurugram — claiming that they were paying obeisance to the victims of the Coonoor chopper crash. The district administration has so far succumbed to pressures of Hindu right-wing outfits, revoking permission for Namaz at all sites where they protested.