- Can smart strategy deal with the impact?
There is a perception that by allowing people to crowd the mosques during Ramzan we are sleepwalking into disaster. The precautionary measures included in the 20-point document are no more than suggestions as there is neither a mechanism in place for their implementation nor any punishment for their violation. As the President told media those flouting the measures would only be committing a sin but not a crime. Throwing caution to the winds, the government has decided not to proceed beyond advising worshippers and prayer leaders to follow the universally recognized measures voluntarily.
A number of ulema and prayer leaders have made it known that the coronavirus is a punishment for our sins and the way to get rid of it is by thronging the mosques in the holy month and seeking the Almighty’s forgiveness. Unlike the regular five prayers a day, the taraveeh congregations are not compulsory. This has led Saudi Arabia, Turkey and many other Muslim countries to issue directives to offer the prayers at home. In Pakistan many prayer leaders look for charity during Ramzan and it is in their interest to encourage more worshippers to come to the mosques. As revealed by several Friday congregation pictures the majority of worshippers belongs to the 50-plus category which is most vulnerable to the disease.
The three-point ‘test, trace and quarantine’ (TTQ) strategy devised by the NCOC to control the spread of the virus looks smart on paper. But will it be able to cope with the expected outbreak of the pandemic during Ramzan? Tens of thousands of mosques are spread all over from the coastal areas of Mekran to the plains of Sindh and Punjab and the mountainous Chitral, Gilgit-Baltistan and AJK. Any violation of the precautionary measures even at a few hundred of these mosques can spread the virus like wildfire from one end of the country to the other. The major Muslim countries with many times more resources than Pakistan felt that no levees built by them would be able to withstand the advance of the impending hurricane generated by the big prayer gatherings in Ramzan. There is an urgent need on the part of the government to revise its decision and restrict these gatherings.
