Guwahati: The government of Assam, led by the BJP, has terminated the longstanding practice of observing a Friday prayer break in the state assembly to accommodate Muslim members for Friday prayers.
According to Kashmir Media Service, the assembly previously provided a break from 12:00 PM to 2:00 PM every Friday specifically for Muslim members to perform their prayers. This practice, which had been in place since the British colonial era, has been discontinued by the current administration.
The report further details a recent legislative change in Assam, where the government introduced a new law necessitating the compulsory registration of Muslim marriages and divorces, superseding the Assam Muslim Marriages and Divorces Registration Act of 1935. With this new regulation, the responsibility of registering marriages shifts from qazis, or Islamic judges, to a government sub-registrar. Moreover, the law stipulates that marriages involving individuals under the age of eighteen will not be registered.