Activists of Hindu outfit threaten to perform ‘puja’ inside Taj Mahal

New Delhi : A day after women belonging to a local Hindu outfit barged inside the mosque at Taj Mahal and offered ‘puja’ and did ‘aarti’ inside the premises, Rashtriya Bajrang Dal activists threatened to do a similar thing.

The activists were protesting against the security agency’s failure to stop a Muslim group from offering prayers inside the mosque, which is in violation of the Supreme Court order, IANS reported.

The president of Rashtriya Bajrang Dal’s women’s wing president Meena Diwakar claimed that namaz was being offered inside the temple premises every day and if the guilty were caught and punished for breaking the law then they too were ready to face any police action.

“Permission was granted for offering namaz once on Friday but it has been offered on other days too. So we also offered ‘aarti’. We are prepared to face action if those violating the norms by offering ‘namaz’ on weekdays are punished,” HT quoted Diwakar saying.

The incident comes on the backdrop of an ongoing war of words between the ASI and members of Masjid Taj Mahal Intezamia Committee, which manages the mosque, over a Supreme Court order on Taj Mahal.

ASI contends the SC order implies that namaz can only be offered on Fridays by local residents, whereas the committee members say the order means that free entry for locals is on Fridays, while on all other days, anyone who has bought a ticket can offer namaz. The apex court had upheld a local administration’s January order barring non-residents from offering Friday prayers in the mosque on security ground.

Members of the committee allege that around 10 days ago, ASI locked the vazu tank, where namazis wash hands and feet before prayers, and even asked the imam to show up only on Fridays.

The move has invited ire of the local Muslims, who contend that they have been offering namaz inside the mosque for 400 years now and can’t be stopped by the ASI. They contend that the SC order merely bars non-locals on Fridays while there is no word on not allowing namaz on other days.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by The Kashmir Monitor staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)