Moslim clerics in Mbarara have blocked the district Kadhi from leading the Idd El Adha prayers.
Hajj Isa Kakule who headed the prayers confirmed that irritated Muslims couldn’t let the district Kadhi Sheik Ramathnan Khamisi lead the prayers at Abubakar Mosque, accusing him of stealing the Muslim land.
Khamisi is said to have connived with one of the local tycoons and owner of Tutsi Petrol Station, hiding behind the Uganda Muslim Supreme Council, to illegally sell the Muslims’ cemetery where clerics are buried.
“If you ever see Muslims come up here with machetes to cut the trees and destroy property on this land, they should not call them terrorists; they will be fighting to take back what belongs to them,” Hajj Kakule told reporters on Monday.
However, when contacted the district Khad Sheik Ramathnan Khamisi dismissed as baseless the claims that he had been thrown out of the mosque, noting, “I in fact led the second session.”
“In any case they have no mandate to dismiss me from the mosque and if they were to do so, I also have massive support. You would have seen chaos here” Sheik Khamisi said.
The district asked Muslims in the district to be patient and not to shed blood over the land in question, saying that the RDC and Mufti Shaban Mubajje have joined in to resolve the matter as it had been forwarded to the UMSC in Kampala.
Meanwhile there was drama at the municipality abattoir where the Turkish government donated 550 cattle to Muslims in south western Uganda for Eid.
The director of I’Qra Foundation Mbarara, Abdul Kasule said that it was hard for them to get the exact number of cattle for slaughtering before Idd celebrations.
The meat was to be supplied to all Muslims and institutions like the army schools, refugee camps in Lyantonde, Kasese, Isingiro Mbarara, Kiruhura and Kisoro district.
He said on Tuesday (tomorrow) they will slaughter 180 cows and others will be slaughtered on Wednesday.