Hyderabad: After Sonu Nigam raised religious controversies regarding the calling for prayer ‘Azaan’ on twitter, the impact seen on different communities who were living in harmony until now are complaining about noise pollution against temples, churches and masjids for causing disturbances in the time slot of 10pm to 6am, for playing loud music, chanting prayers.
Religious institutions claiming it is their freedom of right, residents living nearby are taking it to complaint forums for raising their concern regarding these disturbances with many of the religious groups conducting programs throughout the night or early hours in the morning.
“We don’t want to make it a communal issue, both mosques and temples make it hard for us to live here,” says Rajashekar Rao, secretary of a welfare association of TRT colony, Vidyanagar with about 10 mosques and temples creating severe noise pollution.
Raj Kumar from Ganesh Utsav committee said “Overnight functions and celebrations are a one-off thing for which we take necessary permissions. The prayers help in instilling religious values and peace in people.”
Rizwan Qureshi, cleric at Mecca Masjid said, “One must understand that Azaan is just a call for prayer, so if it is not made on loudspeaker, it is meaningless. Also, it lasts just 3-4 minutes”.
According to PCB, the data collected from monitoring data from the 11 centres in the city showed 10-15 per cent rise in noise pollution for the last month. These readings are collected information from the loud speakers used to vehicular noise pollution.
Though the permission is granted, in the cases where the sound is above 50 decibel, the violators are liable to face legal action, Deccan chronicle reported.