Places of worship reopen, people refrain from visiting

Several places of worship in the district opened their doors to the public on Monday, nearly 80 days after they first closed on March 19. However, there didn’t seem

Several places of worship in the district opened their doors to the public on Monday, nearly 80 days after they first closed on March 19. However, there didn’t seem to be too much footfall on Day One.

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According to government guidelines, all places of worship that reopen will have to ensure that they thermally screen devotees, sanitise the premises and that devotees follow social distancing norms. The places of worship cannot allow over five people inside at a time, or let footwear cluster. The guidelines also specifically allow only asymptomatic people to visit these places.

Religious places in the district, except for those in containment zones, opened up on Monday morning.

“Everything went smoothly. We followed all the government guidelines. There weren’t too many visitors in the morning. We allowed only five people inside at a time. We are not restarting the langar for now. We have asked all devotees to remove their footwear in their vehicles only,” Gurpreet Singh, part of the management of the Sector 18 gurudwara, said.

Most of these places have marked the floor to ensure that visitors follow the norms of social distancing.

“We have shaved off two hours from our earlier timings. Nearly 40-50 people came today, most of whom were families, which is less than the regular number of visitors, but things will pick up gradually. We held a havan first and then opened our doors to the public. Even Member of Parliament Dr Mahesh Sharma came to offer his prayers. We are ensuring that people wear masks. We are also cleaning the premises regularly,” Sanjay Bali, general secretary, Sanatan Dharam temple, said.

Churches in the district will not open their doors up till the end of this month. The Iskcon temple in Sector 33 also didn’t reopen on Monday. Its board will decide when to open up later this week.

The police said that there was no law and order situation nor was any place shut for violating guidelines.

“We had met with representatives of all religions, who had assured us they will follow all guidelines. Senior officials also visited a few places. No one reported any incident. For now, even the public is refraining from going out and there are no problems,” Sankalp Sharma, deputy commissioner of police, zone 1, said.

Most mosques under the Sector 20 jurisdiction, including the Jama Masjid, did not reopen on Monday.