Villagers may lose generational holdings as Madhya Pradesh Waqf Board auctions land

Bhopal/ Raisen : After controversies in various states over Waqf Boards claiming generationally held land holdings of villagers, now the Madhya Pradesh Waqf Board has decided to take a step further and auctioned off such lands, which it has claimed as Waqf properties.  The Madhya Pradesh Waqf Board has auctioned thousands of acres of land, declared to be Waqf property, in a state-wide exercise targeting all 55 districts over the past few months.  As part of the process, thousands of acres of land identified as “belonging to Waqf” was leased out in a process that lasted several weeks. Interestingly, it is the first year when such a wide scale auction of Waqf land has been organized across the state. Earlier such Waqf lands were handled by various Muslim organizations and trusts. From this year onwards Madhya Pradesh Waqf Board has started to handle these properties centrally, sources revealed.    While Waqf Boards in other states like Karnataka and Tamil Nadu had issued notices to farmers on their lands being claimed by Waqf, no such communication has been sent by the Madhya Pradesh Waqf Board, sources said.  The entire process was apparently conducted without making any provision for handing over the physical possession of the land in these auctions, while also not bothering to check whether these “Waqf lands” were still being cultivated by the local population. 

Tehelka.com visited Gudawal, Hamidkhedi and Umraoganj villages in Raisen district of the state where over 1,000 acres of land, claimed to be Waqf properties, has been auctioned by the Board. Officials with the board claim that these are lands bestowed to the Waqf by Muslim community leaders and individuals over the past few decades and it is now in the process of leasing these out for welfare of the community.  Villagers in Umraoganj stated that the land in the area has been tilled by their families for several generations and they do not know how the Board has termed their land to be Waqf property. “We don’t know of any Waqf properties in the area. This land has been cultivated by my family for the past over twenty years and before that it was being tilled by my father,” said Khuman Singh, a local resident who grows paddy and operates a dairy farm from the land. Most villagers were unaware of the move by the Madhya Pradesh Waqf Board to auction land in their villages as no official communication regarding the same has been made available to them. “The land here has been cultivated by our forefathers for several generations. We don’t know how the Waqf Board is claiming it to be theirs,” said Beli Ram Meena, another resident of the village.  Most of the residents claimed ignorance regarding any auction process or change in ownership of land in government records and stated that no such notification has been brought to their knowledge.