Relief to Muslim trust on police order against offering namaz

Observing that permission is not required to offer namaz inside a private trust building, the Bombay High Court today granted interim stay on an order given by Nashik police to a Muslim trust prohibiting it from allowing people to offer prayers in its building.
By an order dated July 11, the senior police inspector of Bhadrakali police station in Nashik prohibited the Madni Centre from allowing people to offer namaz in their building on the ground that it causes traffic woes in the vicinity.
The centre through its chairman Mumtaz Ahmed Khan approached the high court seeking to quash and set aside the police order. According to the petition, the traffic woes was just a guise under which police prohibited the namaz prayers which are offered five times a day.

"The Madni Centre Wakf is running from a building belonging to the Mumbai Educational and Welfare Trust in Mumbai. In 2008, the centre took permission from the trust to allow Muslims from the Deobandi school of thought to offer namaz prayers in the building as they are not allowed in any other mosque," the petition states.
It alleges that Muslims from other schools of thought have vested interests and are influencing the police and hence an order of prohibition was issued.
A division bench of Justices V M Kanade and K S Shriram today granted interim stay on the police order and directed the government to file their affidavit within four weeks.