July 21, 2008	Monday	Rajab 17, 1429

HYDERABAD, July 20: Around 153 prayer leaders and moazzins are running from pillar to post to get themselves reinstated after Auqaf department terminated their contracts under a Sindh cabinet decision to end services of all contract employees.

The employees who were paid a paltry sum of Rs 1,500 to Rs2,500 were shown the door on May 9. Since then they have been knocking at the doors of politicians and ministers but their pleas have so far fallen on deaf ears.

The remuneration paid to them is hardly one third of announced Rs6,000 minimum wages.

They had been hired during different periods since 1992 and had been serving in an unspecified number of mosques under Auqaf’s control in the province. The recurring expenses of the mosques are usually met by worshippers’ donations.

“My mother asked me to send some money for medicines and I couldn’t have words to tell her that I am penniless,” said a depressed Maulana Farooq Soomro, who hails from Jacobabad, and is still serving in Aquaf’s Jamia Masjid Saddar.

The only source of some extra income for the prayer leaders and moazzins is imparting religious education to children in their homes in the neighbourhood of the Masjid. “Do you expect me to give quality education to my children in a private school while I earn only Rs2,000 a month,” said Ismail, moazzin of Jamia Masjid.

Ismail, a father of four, lives in a rented house which he shares with his brother. Perhaps once in a month the family enjoys the luxury of eating beef or chicken, otherwise it has to make do with vegetables.

In most cases, posts for prayer leader, moazzin and servant are vacant due to constant ban on employment. The scale of Imam’s post has been BPS-11 and that of moazzin BPS-7 but they have now been revised down to BPS-6 and BPS-5 respectively for unknown reasons.