Allahabad High Court on Tuesday served notices on the Bareilly district magistrate and the senior superintendent of police for preventing some Muslims from offering namaz at a private property in Mohammadganj village last month.

Tariq Khan had moved the high court stating that Reshma Khan, a local, had provided her house to him and other members of the community to hold a religious gathering on January 16.

While they were offering namaz, members of the local administration and the police forced them to stop the event, the petitioner said. Tariq stated that the police also booked him and others for breach of peace because some Hindutva groups and families had registered a complaint against them.

Reshma confirmed to the court that she had allowed access to her home for the event.

The division bench of Justices Atul Sreedharan and Siddharth Nandan expressed concern over the incident and asked district magistrate Ravindra Kumar and SSP Anurag Arya to file their replies on why action should not be initiated against them.

Citing a previous high court order in connection with a Christian group’s prayer meeting in which it had stated that there was no need for permission from any authority for such an event on private premises, the bench said that contempt-of-court proceedings may be initiated against those found involved in preventing the namaz.

The court also stopped all legal proceedings against Tariq and others and posted the case for March 11.

S.F.A. Naqvi, a counsel for the petitioner, said: “The state government has accepted that there was no prohibitory order against any congregation in the village. The HC order is clear that you can hold a religious function in your private properties.”

In another case of highhandedness by Hindutva groups, some people razed a mausoleum in Bihari Nagar in Ghaziabad and removed the rubble from there overnight. While this incident took place sometime in January, the police got active only on Tuesday after seeing a viral video on social media.