KARACHI: Zilhaj moon was not sighted in any part of the country on Thursday evening. Therefore, Eidul Azha will be celebrated on Oct 6 (Monday), the Central Ruet-i-Hilal Committee announced on Thursday.

A meeting of the committee held here was presided over by its chairman Mufti Muneebur Rehman and attended by its members and experts of the Met Office.

According to Dawn’s Peshawar bureau, people in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and adjoining Fata areas will celebrate Eid on three different days. Most people in KP will follow the Cen­tral Ruet-i-Hilal Committee.

But Mufti Shahabuddin Popalzai, who heads a controversial private committee in Peshawar, announced that Oct 5 (Sunday) would be the first day of the festival.

On Wednesday night he had said that sub-committees in nine districts of the province had informed the committee that the moon could not be sighted because of cloudy weather.

He, however, said that a committee of Ulema which met at Peshawar’s Masjid Qasim Ali Khan after contacting Ulema in eight districts of the province had decided that Eid would be celebrated on Sunday. Over one million Afghan nationals liv­ing in the province and people in some tribal areas, especially Bajaur and Mohmand agencies, follow Saudi Arabia and they have decided to celebrate the festival from Oct 4 (Saturday).

Published in Dawn, September 26th, 2014