Haryana Assembly in session: Two Congress MLAs object to Khattar’s statement on namaz

On the first day of the Assembly, the two Congress MLAs — Mamman Khan (Ferozepur Jhirka) and Mohd Ilyas (Punhana) — from the Mewat region raised the issue during Zero Hour of the session.

Urging the Chief Minister to take back his statement, Khan asked: “Why this grave injustice with us?” While referring to the constitutional provisions, Ilyas said: “It may be Gurgaon or another place, we should have freedom to offer namaz. We remained in our country, it’s our country and will be in the future also like in the past. We are from Hindustan; we are Hindustani and we will be Hindustani. Protect our religion and punish the guilty. CM’s statement is unfortunate and regrettable.”

Last Friday, Khattar had stated that namaz should not be offered in the open and the practice “will not be tolerated”, adding that an earlier decision where some sites had been reserved for the purpose had been withdrawn. Asked about Friday prayers being disrupted in Gurgaon over the past few weeks, Khattar had stated: “We have told the police and the Deputy Commissioner that this issue has to be resolved. To resolve it, everyone offers prayers at their own place, someone offers namaz, someone does paath, someone does puja, we have no issue with that. And religious places are built for these purposes only so that prayers are offered there.”