Mumbai: BJP’s key ally Shiv Sena has threatened that if Bhoomata Ranragini Brigade leader Trupti Desai tries to enter Haji Ali dargah, she will be hit her with slippers.
“Trupti Desai says she will enter and touch Mazaar at Haji Ali, we strongly condemn this. If she makes an attempt then she would be welcomed with ‘prasad’ of chappals,” Haji Arafat Shaikh, who joined Shiv Sena after leaving Maharashtra Navnirman Sena in 2014, said.
The Sena’s reaction comes days after Desai launched an agitation seeking entry of women to the famed Haji Ali Dargah in Mumbai.
Bhoomata Brigade alongwith several activities and NGOs have launched a ‘Haji Ali For All’ forum to fight for women’s entry to the shrine — nearly six centuries old and nestling amid the rocks in the Arabian Sea off the Worli shoreline.
"We shall launch the agitation at the Haji Ali shrine on April 28. However, we are ready to discuss the issue with its trustees," Desai had told the media.
According to the Haji Ali Dargah Trust, allowing women up to the tomb of the Pir is against the principle of Islam.
She also called upon all Muslim women in the country to contact her organisation to highlight alleged gender discrimination at other dargah or shrine in India and promised to take up their cause. She said several Muslim women and other groups were fighting for equality vis-a-vis the Haji Ali dargah for years and had even moved courts seeking relief.
Desai was in the forefront in pressing the demand for women’s entry to the Shani Shingnapur temple in Ahmednagar.
In a decision with far-reaching ramifications, the trust managing the temple had said women devotees will also be allowed to enter and pray at the open-to-sky platform. The decision was announced a week after the Bombay High Court ruled that there was no law to prevent women from entering any place of worship.
