The trend of disallowing Friday prayers at the Jamia Masjid began in 2008, and was repeated this year. Ikhlaq Qadri reports.
Most of the people in Kashmir this summer were caged inside their houses as curfews and shutdowns were a routine affair. The restrictions extended to almost all walks of life in Kashmir. So was the main Jamia Masjid of Srinagar city. Mirwaiz family has traditionally been the chief preachers in the mosque. Every week Kashmir’s chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq will deliver the Friday sermon at Jamia Masjid, which sees biggest congregations of the faithful in the Valley. Usually people would assemble outside the mosque after Friday prayers every week to hold anti-establishment demonstrations.
However, in the summer unrest, the authorities almost made the mosque out of bounds for people and the Mirwaiz. A heavy posse of police and paramilitaries would prohibit any public movement in the vicinity of the mosque, especially on Friday prayers.
An office bearer of Mirwaiz’s political party, Awami Action Committee, says at least 20 Friday prayers were not allowed at the Jamia Masjid by the authorities.
Friday prayers were not held at the mosque for eight consecutive weeks and authorities barred Mirwaiz Umar for many more from offering the prayers there.
His supporters see a design in government’s efforts to keep the mosque out of bounds for people and Mirwaiz away from Jamia Masjid.
“This was an attempt to de-link Mirwaiz from the people. Jamia Masjid is the moving spirit of movement,” said special secretary to Mirwaiz, Professor Habibullah Jeelani.
The government says that people are barred from offering Friday prayers at the Mosque to “maintain law and order.”
Mirwaiz lashed out at the government several times, terming it as an infringement of the religious affairs and denying people the right to fulfil their religious obligations.
In an attempt to offer Friday prayers at the grand mosque on December 17, which also was the 10th of Muharram an important day in Muslim history, Mirwaiz shifted his base to from his home at Nigeen to his ancestral house, Mirwaiz Manzil, at Rajouri Kadal two days prior to it on Wednesday.
Rajouri Kadal is a stronghold of Mirwaiz and is much closer to Jamia Masjid.
On Thursday night a police party headed by S.P. North raided the Mirwaiz Manzil, removed Mirwaiz Umar from the house and took him to his Nigeen residence where he was put under house arrest.
The trend to close down Jamia Masjid for Friday prayers re-started during the Amaranth land row agitation in 2008, under governor N N Vohra. For weeks,( seven in a row once) Friday prayers were not offered.
Jamia Masjid has seen the worst sieges during the Sikh era after Kashmir fell to Ranjit Singh’s forces in 1819.
“The siege, curbs and restrictions imposed on historic Masjid in year 2010 by a so called democratic and secular government will be remembered as the darkest of the dark phase in the history of Kashmir,” said Mushtaq Ahmad, a resident of Nowhatta.
