Srinagar: Indian authorities in Indian illegally occupied Jammu and Kashmir have launched a highly intrusive exercise to profile mosques, religious leaders, and seminaries, raising alarm among residents and clerics over new forms of surveillance and control in the disputed territory, Al Jazeera reported.
According to Beyond the Time News, the report said, the police began distributing a four-page “profiling of mosques” form to religious functionaries in Srinagar earlier this month. The forms seek extensive details about the mosques, including their ideological affiliation, funding sources, monthly expenditure, land ownership, and congregation capacity. Additional pages demand personal information about imams, muezzins, and khatibs, including mobile numbers, emails, bank accounts, passports, social media handles, relatives abroad, and even the model of their phones. Similar forms have also been circulated among madrasas.
Residents described the exercise as highly invasive, saying it feels less like a routine survey and more like a state effort to assert control over religious institutions that have traditionally managed their own affairs. Mohammad Nawaz Khan, a Srinagar resident, told Al Jazeera that the forms are creating fear and uncertainty, warning that such detailed information in a conflict zone could have serious consequences.
Senior clerics and religious bodies have condemned the profiling. The Mutahida Majlis-e-Ulema (MMU), Kashmir’s largest umbrella body of Islamic groups, called it a direct attempt to control mosques and undermining trust within the Muslim community. Mir Hafiz Nasir, an imam in Lal Bazar, said the repeated requests for sensitive information, including details of family members living outside Kashmir, were “deeply worrying” and violated privacy.
Peoples Democratic Party president Mehbooba Mufti termed the profiling “discriminatory” and accused the Indian authorities of “turning mosques into crime scenes,” questioning why similar measures are not imposed on Hindu temples, Sikh gurdwaras, or churches.
National Conference spokesman Imran Nabi Dar also urged the New Delhi-appointed administration to halt the exercise, emphasizing that police surveys are being conducted without the consent or control of the elected government.
Al Jazeera noted that the profiling follows the revocation of Article 370 in 2019, after which India increased its direct control over the territory. Restrictions on religious freedoms, closures of main mosques, and limits on congregations for major festivals have persisted ever since. Residents and analysts say such intrusive measures are part of a broader strategy to monitor and suppress Muslim institutions while tightening control over the daily life of Kashmiris.
“The authorities are attempting to convert places of worship into surveillance points,” a political analyst told Al Jazeera. “This not only violates privacy but also threatens the religious and cultural rights of Kashmiris, raising serious concerns under international law.”
