A video of a man allegedly offering Namaz at the Statue of Unity in Kevadia, Gujarat was met with raised eyeballs on social media platforms. In the video, from what can be seen, a person is offering Namaz in the crowded viewing gallery atop the Statue of Unity at the height of 135 meters from the ground.
Namаz at Sardar Patel’s Statue of Unity!!🤦♀️ pic.twitter.com/6floKnOInT
— Rosy (@rose_k01) March 26, 2022
The viewing gallery inside the world’s tallest statue can be accessed through an elevator, and often attracts many tourists. The gallery offers spectacular views of the Sardar Sarovar Dam, its reservoir and the Vindhyachal Mountain range. The video features a man offering namaz at the public site while the gallery is crowded with visitors. While the video is doing rounds on social media, not being sure when it is from, we tried to reach out to people sharing the video, but could not get any information.
The man’s public offering of Namaz has invited strong reactions from people on Twitter.
Just like France, India must adopt a policy of banning hijab in public places & praying in public places for people from all faiths… and most importantly it’s time to bring in the uniform civil code ASAP.
— Madhoo Makhee (@MadhooMakhee) March 26, 2022
This is how they test the limits. Instead of stopping it other communities should follow suit and the govt will have to issue a blanket order to stop all
— Caustickonar (@caustickonar) March 27, 2022
I visited SoU on 22.03.2022. In the Viewing Gallery area an elderly lady was sitting on floor, the security guard asked her to stand and move. Now we see this Namaz happening inside and no one cares..?@souindia must clarify its stand on it..@Bhupendrapbjp @Nitinbhai_Patel
— Saurabh Sinha (सौरभ सिन्हा) 🇮🇳 (@MrSaurabhSinha) March 27, 2022
All deliberate show of religious dominance
— Nety Sahai🇮🇳 (@NetySahai) March 27, 2022
It is not yet clear when the video of namaz being offered inside Statue of Unity was taken. OpIndia cannot independently validate the authenticity of the video.
However, according to a post shared on Facebook, the video of namaz being offered inside the Statue of Unity is at least 8-months-old. The video thaT is doing the rounds recently was shared by a Facebook user on 11 August 2021, highlighting how public places were being used for offering namaz.
However, this was not the first time when people have opposed the offering of prayers like Namaz in public spaces. When in December 2021, members of the Muslim community trespassed an open space in Gurugram for the mass offering of Namaz, Hindu locals objected to this unjust takeover of public space for religious activities.
