People defy Friday prayer ban, beat up police officials in Sindh
\nour correspondent
\nKARACHI\/LAHORE
\nThe number of coronavirus infections in the country crossed 2,600 on Friday, with the federal and provincial governments struggling to prevent people from going to mosques to attend the Friday prayers.
\nAs of Friday night, Punjab led the tally of COVID-19 cases with over 1,069 cases, followed up by Sindh with 789 infections. Balochistan detected 169 cases whereas Khyber Pakhtunkhwa\u2019s tally stood at 343. Islamabad and Kashmir\/Gilgit-Baltistan have reported 199 and 68 cases, respectively.
\nA total of 39 people have lost their lives since the outbreak, whereas over 100 patients have recovered.
\nDespite appeals by the government and religious figures, prayers-goers paid no heed and thronged the mosques across the country, putting the country at further risk of coronavirus outbreak, already facing a spike in cases related to members of Tableeghi Jamaat, which had planned a congregation in Lahore last month.
\nThe meeting was postponed but by then hundreds of people had already arrived at the premises and they stayed on.
\nAhead of Friday congregations, Sindh went on a complete lockdown to discourage the public gatherings, with police deployed outside mosques and public intersections.
\n\u201cGovernments have to make difficult and painful decisions for the greater good of the public,\u201d said Syed Nasir Hussain Shah, Sindh\u2019s minister for local bodies and information. In the greater interest of saving lives, a decision to restrict the prayer congregations at mosques has been taken following a meeting of clerics from all schools of thought.
\nHowever, people who wanted to offer Friday prayer didn\u2019t pay heed to what the government was saying, which led to some ugly scenes.<\/p>\n
In Karachi\u2019s Liaquatabad region, police and prayer-goers clashed outside a mosque when people forced that they would offer the prayer in the basement of the Ghousia Masjid.<\/p>\n
When the police intercepted them, a brawl resulted. Two policemen on duty were beaten up by the people. A bigger contingent of police took control of the situation and also registered a case against the prayer leader.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
People defy Friday prayer ban, beat up police officials in Sindh our correspondent KARACHI\/LAHORE The number of coronavirus infections in the country crossed 2,600 on Friday, with the federal and provincial governments struggling to prevent people from going to mosques to attend the Friday prayers. As of Friday night, Punjab led the tally of COVID-19 […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":114419,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-115598","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-top-news"},"yoast_head":"\n