KARACHI: Clerics of four mosques in New Karachi have been booked within a week for violating the Sindh Sound System (Regulation) Ordinance, 2015, as the number of cases registered against clerics for violating the code of using sound system in less than two years has reached 363 in Karachi’s Central and West districts alone, it emerged on Thursday.

The cases were registered against Maulana Mohammad Waseem Sadiq of Jamia Masjid Khizrah in Sector 11-D (FIR No 57/2016), Imam Syed Najam Shah of Jamia Masjid Siddiq-i-Akbar in Sector 11-E (FIR No 62/16), Syed Aslam Qadri of Jamia Masjid Farooqia in Sector 11-L (FIR No 63/16) and Mohammad Mansoor Attari of Jamia Masjid Chaman-i-Aziz in Sector 11-I (FIR No 64/16) for “inciting one sect against the other and not following the code of using sound system given to them by the authorities”, said an official at the New Karachi police station.

He said the clerics were booked between March 12 and 19 under the law, which was promulgated last year.

Similar complaints were filed against Ahmed Qadri, son of Yunus Qadri, of Masjid-i-Qubah in Sector 11-J on March 12 for “inciting people of one sect against the other” during a Friday sermon and Imam Zubair Ahmad, son of Mohammad Yusuf, on March 19 for ‘hate speech’. However, in the case of Zubair Ahmad, officers didn’t specify who was targeted in the speech.

These cases are among the 363 others reported largely in Karachi’s Central and West districts under the National Action Plan and the drive to curb misuse of loudspeakers.

Since the promulgation of the Sindh Sound System (Regulation) Ordinance, 2015, hundreds of cases have been registered in the two districts against clerics, protesters, and wedding organisers among others for misusing loudspeakers.

According to a report prepared by the West zone police, most of the cases, 222 to be precise, were reported in Karachi’s West district. Of them, around 216 cases were registered for “the use of sound system in the vicinity of a place of worship during prayer times”. Four cases were registered against clerics for “voicing sectarian and other utterances of a controversial nature.” Besides, two persons were booked for “using higher volume in a place of worship which could be heard beyond 10 yards outside the boundaries”.

Elaborating this requirement, Inspector Ramzan from the West zone police said: “We have informed muftis and peshimams that the sermons in Urdu should be given at a volume that could be heard only in the vicinity of the praying area and not beyond that whereas it is all right for a sermon in Arabic to be on a higher volume.”

The report is yet to be sent to the home department, according to police officers. DIG West Feroze Shah said the police hadn’t made any arrests so far. “We are using these FIRs as a warning to offenders and won’t make arrests until we receive further evidence,” he added.

Published in Dawn, March 25th, 2016