By TwoCircles.net staff reporter,
New Delhi: To press their demand for wage increase, several imams of Delhi’s mosques took to street on 8th May and held a demonstration before the Delhi Wakf Board office.
Addressing the demonstrators, Maulana Sajid Rashidi, president, All India Imams Association said Wakf Board was not a personal property, yet a few individuals were misappropriating its properties. Maulana Rashidi said they have earlier met with the chairman of the Wakf Board Chaudhary Mateen Ahmad in connection with their demand and at that time they were taken in confidence and assured that their demands will be considered. However, no thought has been given to their demands.
Through the member of the Board and Naib Imam of Masjid Fatehpuri Maulana Mohammad Muazzam, the demonstrators were reassured yesterday about consideration on their demands. He told the press that the demands will be considered in next routine meeting but no representative of the demonstrators will be invited to that meeting.
During the protest demonstration, Maulana Sajid Rashidi alleged that in spite of twenty to thirty Imams being surplus, new appointments are being made with the sole purpose that the occupiers of the Wakf Board would succeed in appointing their relatives. He further alleged that the people included in the selection committee have no religious ability. However, regarding new appointments, Maulana Mohammad Muazzam said that since the Janpath Mosque carries extreme importance, an able Imam well versed in issues of Fiqh should be appointed there. Actually, such an Imam was to be appointed today for which sixteen candidates had turned up here.
Rejecting the allegations made by the demonstrators, the chairman of the Wakf Board Chaudhary Mateen Ahmad told that this was the case of appointment of an Imam for Janpath Mosque and a five-member Ulema panel was formed for this purpose so that all proceedings would remain completely transparent, adding that so far as the appointment of the Imam is concerned, they needed an Imam who would be conversant with Urdu, Hindi and English languages and toward this end they had clarified that all Imams of mosques are eligible to apply even if they currently serving under the Board.