MULTAN, Jan 15: The district government has formed a committee to chalk out a strategy to ensure that prayer calls and prayers should be performed concurrently in the mosques of all schools of thought.

The committee was formed at a district peace committee meeting chaired by deputy district nazim Malik Amer Dogar here on Thursday. DCO Muhammad Ijaz Chaudhry was also present in the meeting which was attended by the representatives of various schools of thought.

It was decided in the meeting that only two loud speakers could be used by a mosque and, that too, only for prayer calls and Friday sermon. Qari Haneef Jalandhari was nominated to head the committee for 'concurrent timing' of prayer calls and prayers while another committee with advocate Malik Wazeer Ghazi as its head was also formed to take care of the matters relating to mosques, imambargahs and seminaries.

It was unanimously agreed in the meeting that the police should not be involved in the process of 'peacekeeping' among various sects and rather the matters be resolved at the forum of district government and peace committee.

The chair took note of the absence of Multan city nazim in the meeting and advised him to ensure his presence next time so that matters relating to his council could be redressed. The meeting expressed grief over the murder of Pastor Mukhtar Barkat of Khanewal and demanded arrest of his killer.