The Kano State Hisbah Board has arrested 20 men and women for engaging in gender-inclusive bathing in Kano.
According to reports from Daily Trust, the men of Operation Kau Da Badala arrested the perpetrators at a leisure centre located at Ring Road following complaints by residents of the area.
The report quoted the Deputy Commandant General of the board, Dr. Mujahidin Aminuddin Abubakar, as saying, “The offence contravened the Hisbah law as it forbids mingling together of both genders inside the water to bath.”
He expressed concern over the act, which according to him, “could have been replaced with a more beneficial activity that will fetch them rewards from the almighty”.
The Hisbah Board had in March apprehended 11 Muslims for violating the Ramadan fast by eating during the day.
The arrests were made during the annual Ramadan enforcement operations, which included searches of eateries and markets.
The board’s Public Relations Officer, Lawal Ibrahim, who confirmed the arrests in an interview with the BBC Hausa Service monitored by PUNCH Online said the arrests were made across the city, particularly near markets.
“The individuals arrested include 10 men and one woman, who was caught eating from her groundnut-selling stall,” he said.
The Kano State Hisbah Corps was established by the state government in 2000 and was improved in 2003 with the institutionalization of formerly local and privately maintained Hisbah security units.
It was established to enforce a distinctive Islamic government. It tackles the problems of community security in a different way, dedicated to the abolition of the business and consumption of beer, the restriction of sex work, the segregation of the sexes in public spaces, and the policing of a moral order based on Sharia.
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