No skull caps, long beards: Haryana Panchayat to Muslims

ROHTAK: Panchayat in Haryana village passed a diktat ordering its Muslim community members not to keep skull caps and shave off their long beards apart from adopting Hindu names.

According to reports published in The Hindu, the discriminatory step adopted at a meeting in a Titoli village in Haryana’s Rohtak district also asked the Muslim population in the area to adopt Hindu names and to not offer namaz in the open.

At least, half-a-dozen police personnel were present at the time of the meeting on Tuesday.

Since August 22, there has been tension in the village, largely Jat-dominated after a mob attacked members of the Muslim community on the rumors of beating a calf to death for sacrifice on the occasion of Bakrid.

While the police had said that calf has died accidentally while chasing it away with a stick.

Later, the situation limped back to normality but at Tuesday’s panchayat meeting, it decided to ban Muslims from displaying visible identity markers and to shift the graveyard which is the main issue to another place.

It was also decided in the meeting that over an acre of Waqf Board land in the middle of the village could be taken over by the panchayat and a plot given to the Muslims outside the village for burial.

The village has a Muslim population of about 100 families.

A probe has been ordered into the matter, told Sub-Divisional Magistrate, Rohtak, Rakesh Kumar to The Hindu.