Politics targeting Namaz or the Muslim prayer got a fresh dose of volatile fuel when Union Home Minister Amit Shah, in his speech at Uttarakhand blamed the Congress led former state government for allowing Namaz on national highways. He said, “When I came to Uttarakhand earlier, during the Congress tenure, my convoy was stuck in a traffic jam and some people told me that there is permission to block a national highway for namaz on Friday”. He probably used this ‘anecdote’ to accuse the Congress of some kind of minority “appeasement”, however did not mention which national highway had ever been blocked for namaz and when.
Home minister Amit Shah’s statement, even though details of which highway leading to Uttarakhand was blocked for namaz are yet to be made public may have given a shot in the arm to right wing groups on the prowl to target religious minorities. The Home Minister was speaking at a rally in poll-bound Uttarakhand.
In fact, just a day before the HM made this speech, Hindutva groups once again disrupted a Friday namaz in Gurugram, Haryana. They did so for almost the fourth week in a row, and on Friday, October 29, Gurugram police reportedly detained around 30 people. Gurugram has designated spots where Muslims offer namaz. But right-wing groups have been protesting wherever Muslims have gathered for prayers.
Meanwhile, the HM also accused the erstwhile Congress government of not carrying out restoration work at Kedarnath “for fear of losing vote bank” and said the BJP has since 2017 “fulfilled 85% of the promises in its manifesto” and announced that Prime Minister Narendra Modi was to visit Kedarnath on October 5 and “inaugurate the statue of Adi Shankaracharya during his visit to the shrine.”
Pragya Thakur has an objection to Namaz too
Namaz, rather stopping it, was also on the priority list of BJP MP Pragya Thakur. She recently visited the Kendriya Vidyalaya number 2 in Bhopal, Madhya Pradesh and objected that Namaz was allowed in the mosque built on campus. According to a report in Punjab Kesri the MP reached the Kendriya Vidyalaya principal’s office and said the school was “unsafe for girl students” due to this. She, in a video that has gone viral, scolded the staffers and said she will initiate action against the principal and them. She also reportedly accused the local MLA Arif Masood of trying to play down the issue. Thakur claimed she was responding to “a complaint from the people” that as namaz is offered in the mosque located in the school the girl students “are unsafe” adding that “300 people come” to the school ostensibly to offer namaz.
However, the school principal assured her that the “girls are completely safe in the school” and there were guards and teachers keeping a close watch on the children. According to the news reports, Namaz has been offered at that moque for a long time now.