CHITRAL: In a rather hasty move the government of KPK along with other provinces had issued some very severe orders regarding precautions in the wake of a possible COVID spread. Among the precautions were the orders regarding Friday congregations. It was ordered that Friday prayers would be offered in two shifts. It was also ordered that prayers would be offered on the floor instead of carpets and that the floor would be washed before the prayer. It was also ordered that there would be no speeches and only a short one minute Arabic Khutba would precede the two rakaat farz of Friday prayer and that prayer goers should carry out ablution at home and also offer the Sunnats and Nawafils at home.
Surprisingly none of the orders were respected, rather all the orders were flouted and mosques were even more jam packed than on normal Fridays, as if in defiance. Lengthy speeches were made at full blast in the mosques and time was given as usual for all the Sunnats and Nawafils.
MNA Chitral Abdul Akbar Chitrali took to the loudspeaker at the Bazar Mosque and in a fiery speech of over 50 minutes dwelt on various issues. He gave reasons for the Corona virus and blamed the Chinese for the virus accusing them of eating haraam animals like dogs and cats, snakes and bats etc. He however did not blame the muslims who eat goat meat bought with haraam money. He said spread of Alcohol use and obscenity in the society was a cause of Allah’s wrath. He however overlooked the spread of lies, hypocrisy, cheating, selling fake medicines and foodstuff, exploiting the sick and the needy whenever an opportunity arose and misusing religion for personal ends as factors which could be causes to annoy Allah Almighty. He also spoke of his efforts in the Assembly for implementation of Islam, in his lengthy speech.
The government represented by the District Administration in Chitral fared poorly in implementing the writ of law when it came to religious matters and showed their power only by forcing barbers and isolated shops and law abiding citizens to close down.
It is imperative that before the government plans and orders something it must thoroughly consider it’s feasibility and practicability. Ordering something and not implementing it in letter and spirit or implementing it selectively on the weaker section while letting the stronger section which in this case is the religious section have their way amounts to a degradation of the government writ and it’s status in the eyes of the people … CN report, 20 Mar 2020
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