Much ado over namaz at Agra idgah

Vijay Upadhyay
Agra. The Agra administration and the Archeological Survey of India (ASI) are at loggerheads over a sensitive issue.

Last Friday, the Agra administration unilaterally decided to permit namaz and anti-Denmark demonstrations at the local idgah despite specific ASI regulations prohibiting any religious activity at the idgah on days other than Eid.

Over one lakh Muslims converged at the 416-year-old idgah for namaz and broke open the locks put by the ASI.

They then conducted namaz inside the protected site despite objections raised by the Director General of ASI. The prayers were followed up by a series of demonstrations by Muslims against the cartoons of Prophet Mohammed in a Danish newspaper. The crowd at the idgah waved banners and black ribbons.

The high-pitched slogan-shouting silenced all protests by the ASI staff posted there. The entire exercise received the full support of the district administration which reportedly refused to heed the repeated objections raised by the ASI Director General and allowed the namaz to be conducted under full police protection.

This crowd then filed out of the idgah and marched down the main roads of the town, meeting their ranks coming from the Jama Masjid and served a memorandum to the District Magistrate raising anti-US and anti-Denmark slogans. They later returned to work that was put to a standstill through the day due to this protest demonstration.

The ASI officials said the protest against the Danish newspaper at the idgah had been planned several days back and as soon as the information reached ASI, a formal objection was raised before District Magistrate Sanjay Prasad who was asked not to allow the namaz as rules permitted it only on the two Eids.

However, the officials claimed that the District Magistrate refused to interfere and said that permission had already been granted for the namaz and that considering the sensitivity of the issue, it was not possible to retract it at this point.

On Thursday, the matter was brought to the notice of ASI Director General C Babu Rajiv who faxed his objection to the District Magistrate, but to no avail. The ASI is likely to take up the matter at a higher level once the DG returns from his tour.

Mr Prasad, meanwhile, said that he was only responsible for maintaining the law and order of the town and if the ASI thought that the idgah was out of bounds for Muslims, it should have informed the administration much earlier as after permitting the namaz, it was not possible to take back permission.

Nazir Ahmed, a Muslim leader coordinating the protest, said ASI was playing spoilsport by objecting to Muslims using one of their most sacred religious sites.

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