CHANDIGARH: Haryana Chief Minister Manohar Lal Khattar has once again landed himself in a controversy, this time breaking his silence after right wing hindu groups prevented Muslims from performing their Friday prayers in public spaces in Gurugram, Khattar said namaz should be performed in mosques only and that also on designated days.
Khattar said that there was an increase in instances of namaz being offered in the open these days leading to protests from the local residents. So such congregations should be restricted to mosques or Idgahs rather than public areas. “In our point of view, namaz should be offered at their designated places. Namaz should be offered at mosque and Eidgah. If there is shortage of place for namaz, then it should be offered at personal place. These are not such issues which should be displayed at public places,” he said.
Several Hindutva groups on Friday prevented prayers at three places; Cyber Park, IFFCO Chowk and a plot near Sahara Mall in Gurugram. On April 20, six people were arrested for disturbing namaz in Gurugram as Sanyukt Hindu Sangharsh Samiti has called for a ban on namaz in open spaces.
Khattar however, said that law enforcement was doing its job. He said that directions have been issued to the officers concerned to take all precautionary measures in this regard. Some organizations have submitted complaints regarding performing Namaz at public places.
Earlier Khattar had created a controversy over his comments on beef when he had said, "Muslims can continue to live in this country but they will have to give up eating beef. They can be Muslim even after they stop eating beef, can’t they? It is written nowhere that Muslims have to eat beef, not is it written anywhere in Christianity that they have to eat beef,” he had said.
He said that Haryana Police Cadet Corps on the pattern of National Cadet Corps is being set up in the state involving students from class XI to graduation level. It is also under consideration of the state government to give preference to such students in recruitment to the Police Department, he added.
Khattar also said that Punjab Government has been urged to join hands in checking the wasteful flow of Ravi waters to Pakistan keeping in view the unprecedented water crisis that looms large before both the States. He said that he has written a letter to his Punjab Counterpart Capt. Amarinder Singh to direct his concerned officers to take up the proposal in right earnest.
The letter states, “You must have noticed reports about an unprecedented water crisis that looms large before our States. More and more Blocks of Haryana and Punjab have anyway been slipping into the category of overexploited blocks even as our hard working farmers toil in the face of a stressed farm sector. I think that time has come when we must join hands in checking the wasteful flow of Ravi waters to Pakistan."
"You may perhaps be aware that the sixth meeting of the Committee formed by Union Government in this regard was held in the Central Water Commission, New Delhi on April 23, 2012. It had assessed the quantum of Minimum Utilizable Water (MUW) as 32 cumecs (equivalent to 0.58MAF) on a sustainable basis. The Committee decided that the proposal for its diversion by constructing a 2.0 to 2.5 m high diversion weir structure across river Ravi with a gravity flow canal off-taking from Dharamkot to Harike Head works was viable. The Committee also opined that any other techno-economically superior alternative that would minimize the problem of implementation of the scheme may be carried out during preparation of DPR based on actual survey and investigation by an agency to be decided separately at an appropriate forum,’’ states the letter.