[File photo]
Noida (Uttar Pradesh): In a bizarre move, Noida police has sent notices to firms and companies telling them that they will be held responsible if their employees are found praying or offering Namaz in public places such as parks and open spaces.
“Yes, we have sent notices to many companies in our area after several complaints regarding a large number of people offering Namaz in the afternoon especially on Fridays", Pankaj Rai, SHO of the Sector 58 police station, from where the initial round of notices were issued, told The Indian Express.
"Since most people offering prayers are employees in companies nearby, we have sent notices to those companies to ask their employees to either offer Namaz in a Masjid, Eidgah or within the office compound on the roof etc,” he added.
“We want to inform you that there is no permission from the administration to conduct any kind of religious activity including Namaz offered on Friday in the Authority park in Sector 58. It has been often seen that the Muslim workers of your company assemble in the park to offer Namaz and I, the SHO, have told the group to not hold prayers in the park. Also, their plea to the city magistrate has not received any permission to do so", the notice issued to companies said.
Noida, short for the New Okhla Industrial Development Authority, is a planned city about 47 kms from National Capital New Delhi. The companies that have offices in Noida include HCL Technologies, Alstom Systems, Xansa, Interra, Polaris, R Systems, RMSI, Cadence, Adobe international, TCS, ST Microelectronics, Samsung and Minda Huf.
The move by Noida police comes months after incidents of forcefully stopping Muslims from offering Namaz in open spaces were reported from nearby Gurgaon - known as financial and technical hub of India, some 42 kms from New Delhi.
The Muslims say the two areas with a sizeable population of the community members are lacking in enough number of Masajid as authorities are not allowing construction of new mosques even after fulfilling all legal procedures.
The Haryana State Waqf Board had also submitted to the district administration a list of 19 Waqf properties in Gurgaon where Namaz is not offered for the reason that either the local residents object to offering Namaz there or they have even illegally encroached the Waqf property.
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