The Wire Staff 
New Delhi: Authorities in Kashmir disallowed the congregational prayers at the historic mosque Jamia Masjid in Srinagar city for the tenth consecutive Friday without any official explanation.
In a statement, Anjuman Auqaf Jama Masjid, the managing body of the 14th-century mosque, said that authorities in Srinagar also put moderate Hurriyat chief Mirwaiz Umar Farooq under house arrest on Friday, December 15.
Mirwaiz, who is also the chief cleric of Kashmir, delivers the main sermon at the mosque before the congregational Friday prayers and on other important religious days.
“No reason is provided by the authorities for these restrictions and curbs,” the managing body said in the statement.
“All claims of so-called normalcy by rulers fall flat by such anti-people measures,” Mirwaiz said in the statement, denouncing the curbs while accusing the authorities of allegedly targeting Jamia Masjid “again and again …. to cause grief to Muslims of the valley and show them their place in ‘naya Kashmir’.”
Alluding to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led Centre, Mirwaiz said that the authorities should “stop playing with the religious sentiments of the Muslims and let them offer prayers in their mosques without hindrance.”
“People’s silence and endurance of brazen attacks on their religious rights should not be mistaken as their weakness to respond,” Mirwaiz, who was part of the 2002 dialogue on the Kashmir issue with Pakistan initiated by the BJP-led Centre, said.
In September this year, after more than four years, the moderate Hurriyat chief was released from ‘house arrest’ and allowed to deliver the Friday sermon at the mosque in Nowhatta locality of downtown Srinagar which used to be a separatist hotbed.
Mirwaiz’s appearance at the mosque had triggered emotional scenes as he stood to address the worshippers for the first time after Jammu and Kashmir was stripped of its special status. On the pulpit, the Hurriyat leader broke down and struggled to hold back tears.
However, the mosque, which is thronged by thousands of Muslims on important religious occasions, has since remained largely out of bounds for worshippers on Fridays with authorities citing alleged fears of law-and-order disturbances.
Mirwaiz delivered his sermon at the mosque on two Fridays out of 13 since his release on September 22.
While officials have reportedly justified the closure of Jamia Masjid, the managing body of the mosque has accused the authorities of infringing on the religious rights of the people of Kashmir under the garb of security concerns.
The decision to close the historical mosque comes at a time when the Supreme Court has upheld the Union government’s controversial August 5, 2019 decision of reading down Article 370 and downgrading Jammu and Kashmir into two Union territories.
Last month, authorities disallowed Friday prayers at the mosque amid reported apprehensions that worshippers might stage protests or take out demonstrations in support of Gaza and against Israel by sealing the gates.
Earlier, some Kashmir-based preachers also accused the local administration, which is run directly by the Centre, of “muting” the mention of Palestine in their sermons on Fridays at the mosques across the Valley.
Due to “verbal instructions” by the authorities of J&K Wakf Board, which runs shrines across the Union territory, some preachers alleged that they were asked to “avoid mentioning the Palestine issue” during the annual festival of a prominent Sufi saint at a shrine in Srinagar.
“Security personnel were also monitoring the sermons being made and had also conveyed against arousing passions over the subject,” The Hindu quoted two anonymous preachers as saying on November 1.
Last month, sporadic protests broke out in Kashmir parts over a ‘blasphemous’ social media post by a student at the prestigious National Institute of Technology in Srinagar with a top police official claiming that a conspiracy was being hatched “across the border” to use anger against the post for “other things”.