ISLAMABAD: The provincial administration of Sindh announced a complete lockdown between 12pm and 3pm today after Chief Minister Syed Murad Ali Shah held a meeting with a group of religious clerics that was led by Mufti Munib-ur-Rehman on Thursday.
The meeting took place against the background of rising COVID-19 infections in the country and a recent decision of leading clerics in the country to resume prayer congregations in mosques across Pakistan.
Sindh’s provincial government has struggled to impose restrictions on congregational prayers that have been officially limited to five people in a bit to prevent the spread of coronavirus.
The decision was also upheld by the country’s Council of Islamic Ideology, a constitutional body responsible for giving legal advice on Islamic matters to the government, which noted earlier this month that Islam placed a premium on the sanctity of human life.
However, some religious leaders, including Mufti Munib, defied the government’s directive, and minor clashes were reported between their followers and the police in certain neighborhoods of Karachi.
Under the circumstances, the federal government has decided to hold a meeting with religious clerics on Saturday to address the issue. The meeting holds greater significance in the present context since the Muslim fasting month of Ramadan, when mosques get crowded, will begin in the next few days.
While the Sindh administration called for a complete lockdown in the country’s commercial hub, many people still visited mosques in Karachi, though the police did not stop them from attending the religious gathering.
Meanwhile, Pakistan reported 497 new cases of coronavirus in the last 24 hours on Friday, taking the overall national tally of COVID-19 cases beyond 7,000.
So far, 135 people have lost their lives to the infectious respiratory disease caused by the virus that has spread across the world.
Local media, however, called into question the official coronavirus statistics on Friday, claiming that Prime Minister Imran Khan had expressed skepticism over the accuracy of the data during the National Command and Operation Center meeting.
Reportedly, Khan made the statement after health care practitioners and charity organizations, such as the Edhi Welfare Trust, recently claimed they had handled more COVID-19 deaths than were officially acknowledged.
The prime minister also highlighted the importance of accurate statistics for policy-making purposes.