Srinagar: The men who raised slogans inside Srinagar’s Jamia Masjid on 9 April — when it opened for prayers after almost two years — had received a message from Pakistan that said, “Pehla jumma hai, achha mauka hai, logon ko bhadkana hai” (It is the first Friday, it is a good opportunity, incite people), a police investigation has revealed.
A source in the J&K Police told ThePrint that these findings were behind the administration’s decision to shut down the Jamia Masjid for large congregations on important days. The mosque was also closed for morning prayers on Eid-ul-Fitr, which was celebrated Tuesday, but there were no restrictions after that, the police said.
J&K Police arrested 13 people for shouting slogans inside Jamia Masjid on 9 April, and seven of them were found involved in the “conspiracy” to create a law and order situation inside the Jamia Masjid, police sources said. The others had joined the sloganeering “in the moment”.
These seven men have been booked under the Public Safety Act.
“The men raising pro-Pakistan and Azadi slogans and referring to Zakir Musa as a hero were detained from the ground. During investigations, it was found that two of them were in touch with some people lodged inside Central Jail. When those phone calls were traced, it was found that these people were in touch with handlers in Pakistan,” the source said.
The handlers, the source said, told them to disrupt peace inside Jamia Masjid by hoisting Pakistan’s flag, initiate a scuffle with policemen, and also resort to stone-pelting. The IP address of the sender was traced to Pakistan, the source said.
“However, when the men started to raise slogans, the locals, instead of joining in, asked them to leave. In fact, the members of the Jamia intezamia (management) committee also asked them to leave,” the source said. The seven men, police said, were from South Kashmir and had come to the Jamia Masjid to “execute the conspiracy”.
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‘No intention to disallow prayers’
According to police sources, the findings in this case and new intelligence inputs on people creating trouble inside the masjid were the reasons why it was shut down on the occasions of Shab-e-Qadr (night of blessing), Jumat-ul-Vida (last Friday of Ramzan) and also for the morning namaz on Eid.
Sources also claimed that the police shared their inputs with the mosque’s committee and asked if it could give them an undertaking on crowd management, but the latter refused.
The shutdown raised new questions about the administration’s claims of “normalcy” in the Valley.
Former J&K CM and PDP leader Mehbooba Mufti also questioned the claims.
“Eid prayers disallowed yet again in Jamia Masjid tomorrow,” Mufti said in a tweet Monday. “Its clear that GOIs normalcy narrative for J&K is laced with self serving lies and contradictions. Stripping people not of their fundamental rights but also religious freedom symbolises their ruthlessness.”
However, Srinagar Senior Superintendent of Police Rakesh Balwal said the masjid had been closed temporarily “in view of the larger interest and as part of preventive action”.
“Why did we never shut down any other masjid? We don’t intend to stop the people from offering prayers. If that were the case, we would have done the same in other masjids as well, including Hazratbal, which saw over 1.5 lakh people gathered to offer prayers on the last Friday of Ramzan,” Balwal said.
“If the intention was to stop them from praying, we would shut down all big masjids, why just Jamia Masjid?” he asked.
“On Jumat-ul-Vida, we opened the masjid after 3 pm, after the namaz. The shutdown was to save people from getting hurt and to avoid any untoward incident. The decision was taken on the basis of credible inputs,” Balwal added.
According to police data, 11 cases of violence, including stone-pelting on Fridays in Ramzan, were reported from Jamia Masjid between 2016 and 2019. The incidents left more than 100 civilians and 27 security forces personnel wounded.
After violence broke out in the area during Shab-e-Qadr in 2017, a DSP-rank officer from the police security wing, who was off duty at that time, was lynched to death, sources said. In 2019, more than 150 civilians were wounded in these incidents, sources said.
“It is Pakistan’s plan to revive these incidents of stone-pelting and that is why they are deputing people to do it. This is what needs to be controlled,” the source said.
(Edited by Uttara Ramaswamy)
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