Row breaks out at Greater Noida complex over Ramzan prayers, police called

A team of local police officers was deployed following a complaint by some residents of Supertech Ecovillage-2 complex that non-residents were visiting a portion of the commercial mart for prayers

 A row broke out at an apartment complex in Greater Noida after a section of residents objected to some people from outside the complex offering namaz in a vacant area inside the premises on Monday evening.

A screengrab of a video shows residents of the society confronting people from outside the complex in an attempt to resolve the issue. (Twitter)

A team of local police officers was deployed following a complaint by some residents of Supertech Ecovillage-2 complex that non-residents were visiting a portion of the commercial mart of the complex for prayers. They told the police that they were only objecting to non-residents coming to the complex for Ramzan prayers, and had no objections to Muslim residents offering prayers there.

In view of the commotion over the prayers, Muslim residents \told the police that they too will not offer prayers at the open space designated by the builder and will pray at home or at a mosque.

Rambadan Singh, deputy commissioner of police (Central Noida), said the matter was amicably resolved.

“The Muslim residents have given in writing that they will not offer namaz in the public area in the market and will instead pray at home or at their place of worship. As a precautionary measure, the police force has been deployed in the area,” the DCP said.

Anil Rajput, station house officer of Bisrakh police station, said the police reached the spot after receiving information of a row around 8.30pm. “The builder has left some open space on the third floor of the commercial market for residents to offer namaz during Ramzan. Around 30 to 40 people daily offer namaz there. However, the society residents objected to non-residents coming here to offer namaz,” Rajput said.

A resident of the society, who did not wish to be named, said the concern was the society’s security since the commercial mart is located inside the society.

“Of the 30 or 40 people who were offering namaz at the public place in the past week, only about 10 people were from our society and the rest were from outside. Hence, residents objected to those coming from outside the society. There were no issues with residents of our society using the space for praying,” he said.

A police statement, however, put the number of non-residents offering the prayers at 7 to 8 people.