Devotees offer prayers at Hazratbal shrine in Srinagar

SRINAGAR - Scores of devotees converged for peace prayers at the famous Muslim shrine of Hazratbal to mark Meraj-ul-Alam festival in Srinagar on Saturday.

The shrine, however, witnessed less number of devotees in comparison to previous years due to a curfew following widespread incidents of mobs stone-pelting at security forces and the killing of more than a dozen protesters.

Sermons on the teachings of Prophet Mohammed were read out during the prayers.

“We prayed for peace, we prayed for the Kashmiri people. There used to be thousands of people here, but this year I saw there was very little crowd, because the kind of situation which is prevailing in our Kashmir for the past 10 to 15 days,” said Amir Ali, a devotee.

“The situation of curfew and number of youth have been killed, we prayed for them all,” he added.

Another devotee Bashir Ahmad, however, said the prayer was very successful keeping into account the current situation in the valley.

“In the morning, 8,000 to 10,000 people read the namaaz and saw the moon, from inside and outside the shrine. Then, devotees kept on coming and read namaaz. Ladies and gents, both came to the shrine, and the entire shrine was full of people,” said Ahmad.

Prophet Mohammed’s Moi-e-Muqaddas (Holy Relic) is housed in the Hazratbal mosque.he Moi-e-Muqaddas is displayed for public viewing on ten occasions in a year, which includes Meraj-ul Alam.

Muslims believe that on this day Prophet Mohammed reached moon some 1,400 years ago.

Born in 570 A.D., Mohammad is believed to be the last Prophet of Islam. (ANI)