Islamabad - The under construction mosque, foundation of which was laid by transgender community some months ago, will not be precisely for their own community, but for every faithful, said a shemales association head yesterday.
Nadeem Kashish, the leader of She-Male Association for Fundamental Rights (SAFFAR) talking to The Nation said that the mosque ‘Rehmat-ul-el-Almeen’ will be open for every Muslim.
“The impression that community is building this mosque only for transgender is completely wrong, it is being constructed as it was also a requirement in the slum,” Kashish said.
Kashish said there are nearly 150 houses in the slum area adjacent to the shrine of Bari Imam in Noorpur Shahan and the number of transgender community living here is around 70.
Talking to The Nation, Kashish said that although transgender community called for the need of mosque due to social problems but it was also the requirement of the other people living here.
“There are already so many divisions and sects in the country, in such a situation, we cannot announce a separate mosque only for the transgender,” Kashish said.
She said social behaviour of the people has always remained negative for the community and the members here felt the need of mosque where they are neither ‘mocked’ nor stopped from praying.
“We don’t even enjoy the rights of being an equal citizen in the country so we cannot take risk of announcing a separate mosque for our community, which can also raise some problems,” she said.
According to her, all residents of the colony are also contributing for construction of the mosque.
However, Kahsish also informed that the construction work on the mosque has been stopped due to shortage of funds.
“Where people are terming construction of this mosque a controversial step, we have gone under debt of Rs 250,000 since the work was started,” she said.
According to her the association had collected Rs 700,000 in this regard but now there is no work on the site because of non-availability of funds.
“The supply of construction material by the contractors has also been impeded because we remained unsuccessful to clear their dues,” said Kashish.
Replying to a query, she stated that transgender community has raised the funds by ‘begging’ and ‘dancing’ in functions while other influential people of the area also contributed in it.
According to her, a representative from a religious organization had also visited the construction site and announced that it will help in constructing the roof.
“But, it remained an unfulfilled promise by the organization. And we know the reason, as no one wants to associate his social work with eunuchs,” she said.
Kashish also denied any reports of fund raising campaign for the construction of mosque.
“We accepted the amount by everyone who voluntarily came and gave it but we didn’t launch any campaign for this purpose in order to stay away from controversies,” said Kashish.
Meanwhile, an official of National Council for Social Welfare (NCSW), a federal department working for the development of deprived community, talking to The Nation said that Supreme Court (SC) had passed the ruling for protection of transgender community.
“Court had ruled that transgender must be issued national identity cards, inclusion of their names in voter list and transfer of property to them including protection of their rights,” he said.
He said NCSW also drafted a bill for legislation regarding transgender community rights and sent it to Council of Islamic Ideology (CII) for comments.
According to the documents available to The Nation, CII had remarked that the eunuch with male indications should be given inheritance rights of male and symptoms with female must be given share according to female rights.
The official said this also clears that male eunuchs can go to mosques allocated for males and female eunuchs are allowed to the praying places set for women.
“This definition also solves the issue of separate mosque for the community,” he said.