Onlykashmir.in News Desk
Anjuman Auqaf Jama Masjid has strongly condemned the continued house detention of Mirwaiz-e-Kashmir Dr Moulvi Mohammad Umar Farooq for the past ten days, calling it arbitrary and unjustified. The Anjuman said that no one is being allowed to meet him, cutting him off from the people and deepening the hardship caused by his confinement.
The restrictions prevented the Mirwaiz from reaching the historic Jama Masjid Srinagar and delivering last Friday’s sermon. With Friday prayers approaching again, the Anjuman said that continuing to confine him and bar him from the pulpit would deny him the ability to fulfil his religious responsibilities and deprive the congregation of its long-standing Friday sermon.
The Anjuman demanded his immediate release from house detention and urged the authorities to allow people to meet him and to permit him to proceed to Jama Masjid to deliver the Friday sermon. Such restrictions, it said, serve no purpose and only cause distress to the faithful who gather at the Masjid each Friday.
The detention began after the Mirwaiz referred to the International Crisis Group report on Jammu and Kashmir in his address at Jama Masjid on the last Friday of October. On November 6, he said in a post on X that his house detention was continuing, with police deployment and barricades outside his Nigeen residence, and that he would be unable to deliver the sermon. Since then, a district-level Ulema meeting of the Muttahida Majlis-e-Ulama planned at Bandipora has been postponed, and he has been unable to attend funerals of associates and acquaintances.
The Anjuman’s statement marks an escalation, as it now says that visitors are also not being permitted. The Friday congregation at Jama Masjid is one of the most important religious gatherings in the Valley, and the Mirwaiz’s sermon has long been followed for both its spiritual and its social messages. His absence from the pulpit for two consecutive Fridays, if it continues, would be a matter of continuing public concern.
The authorities have not issued any statement explaining the restrictions in the information available. On previous occasions, officials have cited law and order considerations for such measures, while the Mirwaiz and his supporters have argued that they are an unjustified curb on religious and civil freedoms. Whether he will be allowed to lead the Friday prayers this week remains to be seen.
