– Md. Sami Ahmad
Patna, Aug 28: Even while the proposed Waqf Amendment Bill 2024 is hotly debated, it has come to notice that over four hundred cases relating to Waqf properties are pending in Bihar as they are being either grabbed or encroached upon.
A statement by the chairman of Bihar State Sunni Waqf Board, Mohammad Irshadullah, claims that the board is finding it difficult to get the waqf properties worth hundreds of crores back from the land grabbers.
Irshadullah also says that even in those cases where the Waqf Board has got favourable verdicts, the administration is not helping to regain possession. He says that arranging possession is the duty of the administration. He says it’s the responsibility of the district administration to free the Waqf lands from wrongful possession-holders. The Waqf Board has been doing correspondence with the district administration but to no avail.
Citing the example of Patna, Irshadullah said a Waqf land grabbed by the illegal occupants has to be freed as a school for minorities has to be opened on that land on Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s direction.
He says that recently possession orders have been issued by the court in seven cases but the district administration is not ensuring the compliance of those orders.
He discussed the case of Govindpur in Fatuha which was in the news with wrong information recently. He says that there is a wrongful possession of Waqf land in that village where the Waqf dates back to 1959.
It needs to be mentioned that the JD(U) led by Nitish Kumar is severely criticized by the Muslim community of Bihar for supporting the Waqf Amendment Bill 2024 in the Lok Sabha by JD(U)’s Monger MP Lallan Singh. The Muslim leaders of JD(U) are trying hard to convince Nitish Kumar to oppose the Waqf Amendment Bill.
