UP Govt bans namaz, aarti on streets

Tribune News Service

Lucknow, August 14

There will be a complete ban across Uttar Pradesh on offering namaz or any other religious ritual on the streets or public places that causes hardship to people, said state DGP OP Singh.

On the eve of Independence Day, the DGP said the Meerut and Aligarh model would be replicated across the state.

Following the police orders, Friday prayers were for the first time not allowed anywhere on the streets in Meerut on August 9.

Friday prayers on the streets, which had in recent days become a flashpoint due to traffic jams, had been done away with in Meerut city, said IG Meerut zone Alok Singh.

While IG Singh claimed it had been done with the consent of Muslim clerics and citizens, a section of the Muslim population said the decision had been forced on them. A similar order banning namaz on the streets was strictly promulgated in Aligarh as well.

DGP Singh said the model was now to be replicated across the state so that people were strictly prevented from offering namaz or any other religious ritual on the streets.

It may be recalled that in Aligarh, Hindu organisations had begun chanting Hanuman Chalisa on the streets on Tuesdays and Saturdays to protest Friday prayers spilling onto the streets.

It was in view of this that the district administration had stopped any religious ritual on the streets.