'Reopen Charminar for prayers', demands Telangana Congress leader, starts signature campaign amid Qutub Minar row

Congress local leader Rashid Khan claimed that prayers were earlier held at the Charminar, an Archeological Survey of India protected site, but two decades ago Muslims were debarred from offering prayers at the site.

Image courtesy: ANI

Hyderabad: Amid ongoing row over the restoration of 27 Hindu and Jain temples in the Qutub Minar complex in the national capital, which the ASI opposed in a Delhi court last month, a Telangana Congress leader starting a signature campaign to hold a sit-in protest to allow the Charminar in Hyderabad to be opened for offering prayers. 

According to reports, Congress local leader Rashid Khan on Tuesday claimed that prayers were earlier held at the Charminar, an Archeological Survey of India protected site, but two decades ago Muslims were debarred from offering prayers at the site. Maulana Ali Quadri told ANI, "Earlier in the Charminar, people used to hold prayer but since a person died by suicide at the Charminar site, it was stopped." 

Khan reportedly said that he started a signature campaign in regards to a mosque near the Charminar and requested the ASI and the Ministry of Tourism and Culture to open it for offering prayers, adding "When we spoke to the Ministry of Culture, Kishan Reddy said there will be a law and order problem."

"I will take all the signatures and go to the secular CM of Telangana. If our requests are not addressed, we will do a sit-in protest at the Pragati Bhavan. Wrong promises are being made across the country on mosques," ANI quoted him as saying. 

Khan further spoke of the presence of a Bhagya Lakshmi temple near Charminar and called it an "unauthorised encroached illegal construction" citing an ASI report, adding "We believe in Ganga Jamuna tehzeeb. If prayers are happening in the temple, let it happen, but in the same way, our mosque is closed and it should be opened and we should be given permission for the Namaaz."

Telangana Congress Khan also demanded that the temple be shut down "if ASI is closing the mosque".

Reacting sharply to the Congress leader`s signature campaign, BJP's former MLC Ram Chander Rao said that the party is trying to "create communal tension in Hyderabad". 

The BJP MLA also claimed that the Congress party has lost ground in the city, adding "They are trying to gain ground by raking up communal issues which are concerned with the state government and not at all concerned with the Central government. There is a mosque which is a heritage structure which is closed and there is a temple where people have been worshipping for several years."

He further added that connecting the two issues (temple and mosque near Charminar) is an attempt to "provoke communal tension" in the old city calling it an "offence".

"The state government should step in to maintain law and order and arrest him for creating communal trouble in the city. Both TRS and Congress try to provoke religious sentiments of minorities for their benefits," he alleged.

(With Agency Inputs)