Opened cinema halls in Kashmir but why is Jamia Masjid shut on every Friday: Owaisi to Manoj Sinha

Jammu and Kashmir police on Tuesday night rejected the claims of Lok Sabha MP Asaduddin Owaisi that Jamia Masjid in Srinagar was being shut every Friday, saying barring three occasions the mosque has remained open post-Covid. Owaisi retorted back with a news report attributed to the mosque’s managing body saying that Jamia Masjid remained shut for prayers for 45 Fridays in 2021.

The war of words started when Owaisi took a jibe at Jammu and Kashmir lieutenant governor Manoj Sinha after he inaugurated two cinema halls in Kashmir’s Pulwama and Shopian districts on Sunday.

“Sir @manojsinha_ you have opened Cinema Halls in Shopian & Pulwama but why is Srinagar Jamia Masjid shut on every Friday at least don’t shut it during the afternoon matinee show,” Owaisi, who is the president of All India Majlis-e-Ittehadul Muslimeen(AIMIM), said in a tweet.

The Srinagar police responded by saying that the mosque remained open post-Covid barring on three occasions.

“Jamia is fully opened, only on 3 occasions post-covid, it was temporarily shut for Friday noon prayers owing to inputs of terror attack and law & order situation. This was after Jamia authorities failed to take responsibility for happenings inside. Staying far is no excuse for ignorance,” it said.

The Hyderabad MP again castigated the J&K LG Sinha saying the “fact” put forth by police was as true as Sinha’s claim that Jamia Masjid chief cleric Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was not under house arrest.

“This ‘fact’ is just as true as Mr @manojsinha_ saying Mirwaiz Umar Farooq ‘na nazar-band hai na band hai. Wo khud teh karein ki wo karna kya chahte hai’ (he is neither arrested nor is he under house arrest. He should decide what he wants),” Owaisi said while quoting a December 2021 PTI report with the headline ‘Jamia Masjid in Srinagar remained shut for prayers for 45 Fridays this year, says Anjuman’. He also quoted an Aljazeera report titled ‘Closed Kashmir main mosque belies India’s religious freedom claim’ of the same month.

The J&K Lt Governor Manoj Sinha in an interview with BBC Hindi in August had claimed that the Hurriyat Conference chairman Mirwaiz Umar Farooq was not under arrest saying “We have kept police around him for his safety”.

However, the claim was rejected by Hurriyat saying that he has been under house arrest since August 2019 and was even stopped from going to Jamia Masjid on Fridays to deliver religious sermons, an old tradition of the family in Jammu and Kashmir.

To test the LG’s claim, Mirwaiz attempted to leave his house on August 26 but wasn’t allowed.

Jamia Masjid is one of the biggest mosques in Kashmir and has been central to many important developments throughout the history of the Valley. Hurriyat leader and chief priest of the mosque, Mirwaiz Umar Farooq used to deliver weekly sermons here but has not done so since August 5, 2019, when the special status of J&K was revoked.

The mosque has remained closed for extended periods since August 2019 owing to the restrictions by the government after the revocation of Article 370 and followed by the Covid-19 pandemic In March this year, the mosque opened after a gap of 30 weeks following its closure in wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. In 2019, the prayers at the grand mosque were held 135 days after Art 370 revocation. The Jammu and Kashmir administrations had disallowed Shab-e-Qadr prayers, an auspicious night for Muslims, and the last Friday prayers of Ramadan in April this year, triggering sharp reactions from the public and politicians.

Later, two Eid prayers in May and July were not held at the mosque with Anjuman Auqaf Jamia Masjid, the managing body of Kashmir’s grand mosque, accusing the administration of “thwarting” the Eid-ul-Fitr prayers