Four Muslims were arrested for offering 'namaz' (prayer) at the mosque situated on the premises of Taj Mahal in Agra, police said on Thursday.
Ibrahim Zaidi, the head of the Intezamia Committee at Taj Mahal, Ibrahim Zaidi said that earlier people were allowed to offer Namaz at the Taj Mahal on a daily basis. However, Superintending Archaeologist, Agra Circle Raj Kumar Patel says that the Supreme Court order prohibits offering namaz in Taj premises. Zaidi asked Patel to provide him a copy of the Supreme Court order which says that namaz is prohibited at the mosque on Taj Mahal compound on days other than Friday. But Patel failed to provide the Supreme Court Order.
The arrests come in the backdrop of pressure from right-wing Hindu groups demanding that they be allowed to offer prayers in what they claim is a Shiv temple (called Tejo Mahalaya) inside Taj Mahal complex.
Earlier, the Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court rejected the plea seeking to open 22 closed rooms in the Taj Mahal to ascertain the presence of the idols of Hindu deities.
The plea was filed by Rajneesh Singh, a BJP youth media in-charge, before the Lucknow Bench of Allahabad High Court that sought the directions to the Archaeological Survey of India to probe the 22 closed doors in the Taj Mahal to ascertain the presence of the idols of Hindu deities.
This is not the first time that Muslims in India face difficulty in offering prayers.
Hindu groups disrupt Muslim prayers in GurgaonFor months last year, right-wing Hindu groups have been protesting against Muslims offering Friday prayers in public spaces in Gurugram - less than an hour outside the Indian capital New Delhi - causing outrage and anxiety among the minority.
Faced with a shortage of mosques, Gurugram's Muslims had been offering their Friday prayers in parks and on empty lots for years with due permission from the authorities. About 100 such sites were earmarked for the purpose.
But persistent protests by Hindu groups have disrupted the prayers in recent months, prompting city officials to withdraw permission from most of the sites.
Mufti Mohammad Saleem, president of the local chapter of Jamiat Ulema E-Hind, a leading organisation of Islamic scholars, told Al Jazeera that "namaz has not been happening even at those 20 designated sites because members of the right-wing groups have been coming there, blocking the sites or disrupting it".Tellingly, In October last, India's powerful Home Minister Amit Shah accused the main opposition Congress party of practicing "appeasement politics" by allowing Muslims to pray on roads.
"Earlier, when I came here during the Congress government, some people told me that the government had permitted the highways for namaz on Fridays. Congress does only appeasement and can't do any welfare work for the people," Shah said during a speech in the northern Uttarakhand state, also governed by the BJP.
Persecution of minorities
Critics have accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi's Hindu-nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of persecuting minorities, including India's 200-million-strong Muslim population.
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