Chennai: The Wakf Board in Tamil Nadu has declared Hindu-dominated villages as Wakf properties. There is a ruckus in the whole country about this. People are questioning that, after all, the place where the villagers have been living for centuries, the land for which they also have government documents, how did that land suddenly belong to the Waqf Board? Does the Waqf Board have the right to grab anyone's land like this? Now the reaction of the Waqf Board has come out, the Waqf has said that this land was allotted after a survey by the government in 1954.

The Waqf Board had declared 389 acres of land in 18 villages of Trichy district of Tamil Nadu as the land of Muslims. When a villager from Thiruchendurai village went to the registrar's office to sell his land, he was told that it was a Waqf property and he would now have to get a No Objection Certificate (NOC) from the Waqf Board to sell his own land. Speaking to the media, Waqf Board chief M Abdul Rehman said, "Since 1954, our Waqf Board records the information of the land surveyed by the government.'' According to the information, we have sent the details along with the survey number and the name of the village to the sub-registrar's office. These villages are spread over a vast area.

Rahman further said, "We will release the details from the archive and give it to the sub-registrar's office. People can continue their work on the land, but they cannot claim ownership of it.'' Refuting the occupation of the temple, Rahman said, "We are proud that waqf property was given for the construction of temples and its ponds. We have provided 300 acres of land for cultivation to a Hindu farmer.'' 

The whole matter came to light when a person named Rajagopal tried to sell his 1-acre land to a person named Rajarajeshwari. When Rajagopal reached the registrar's office to sell his land, he came to know that the land he had come to sell was not his, but now the land belongs to the Waqf and now its owner is the Waqf Board. When Rajagopal told this to the villagers, the entire village was shocked to know that the land on which he has been living for many centuries is no longer his. The villagers wondered how the Waqf Board could claim to own the entire village when they (villagers) had complete papers of land for both residential and agricultural purposes. After this, when the distressed villagers reached the collector about this whole matter, they said that it will have to be investigated, and only then some kind of action can be taken.

Trichy BJP leader Allur Prakash said, "Tiruchendurai village near Trichy is an agricultural area of Hindus. "Manediavalli Samitha Chandrasekhara Swamy temple is present in this village. According to many documents and evidence, this temple is 1,500 years old. The temple has a property of 369 acres in and around Tiruchanthurai village. Is this temple property also owned by the Waqf Board? What is its basis? How can the Waqf Board declare without any basic proof that the land belongs to it? Whereas, the people of the village have the necessary documents of the land. In this whole incident, prima facie, the arbitrariness of the Waqf Board is seen, although now it remains to be seen what action the MK Stalin government of the state takes in this matter. 

Waqf Board is the third largest land owner in India:

The history of Waqf in India is believed to be from the early period of the Delhi Sultanate. Sultan Muizuddin Sam Ghor had given two villages to The Jama Masjid of Multan and handed over its administration to Sheikhul Islam. As Muslim rule spread in India, the number of Waqf properties in the country continued to increase. At the end of the 19th century, an attempt was made to abolish waqf in India. During that time, during the British period, a dispute started over Waqf property in the Privy Council of London. The four British judges who heard the case had declared the Waqf null and void, terming it "the worst and most damaging".

But, this decision was not accepted in India and the Waqf was saved in India by the Muslim Waqf Validation Act of 1913. Since then, no efforts have been made to curb the Waqf. This is the reason why today the Waqf Board is the third largest land owner in the country after the armed forces and the Indian Railways. It is also ironic that, even after giving 33 per cent of India's land and treasury to about 25 per cent of Muslims at the time of partition in 1947, the Waqf Board in India continues to own 6 lakh acres of land (according to the 2006 Sachar Committee report). Is it to be assumed that the original inhabitants of India, Hindus, Sikhs, Jains, and Buddhists have nothing in the country? 

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