KARACHI: The Ruet-i-Hilal Committee announ­ced on Thursday that the Shawwal moon had not been sighted and that Eidul Fitr would be celebrated on Saturday.

The announcement was made by Mufti Muneebur Rehman, Chairman of the Central Ruet-i-Hilal Committee, after a meeting in Karachi.

“It has been decided with consensus that the 1st Shawal 1439 Hijri will fall on Saturday,” said Mufti Muneeb in a press conference at the Met office.

But the moon-sighting controversy dogging the country for the past few years raised its head again as the self-styled Ruet-i-Hilal committee based at Peshawar’s Qasim Ali Khan mosque claimed it had received 14 testimonies about sighting of Shawwal moon.

“In the light of testimonies we have received from parts of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, Eidul Fitr will be celebrated on Friday,” Mufti Shahabuddin Pupalzai said.

The meeting was also attended by Maulana Khairul Bashar, Mufti Abdul Lateef, Maulana Ihsanul Haq, Maulana Hussain Ahmed and Maulana Abdul Shakoor, all members of the `committee’.

“Meetings of the regional committees were also held in provincial capitals. The committee received no moon-sighting testimony from any district or city.”

Published in Dawn, June 15th, 2018