Wakf land encroached upon

The richest Muslim endowment body in India, the Andhra Pradesh State Wakf Board, does not have a proper record of its properties. In fact, the information it has on an estimated 35,000 Wakf institutions is 30 years old and this has encouraged large-scale encroachments on its properties.

A survey costing Rs3.58 million ordered last year remains uncompleted in 20 districts in the state despite and expenditure of Rs2.18 million incurred so far, insiders say.

The three-decade-old data shows the state has 34,860 Wakf institutions and 7,217 acres of land but the Wakf board only identified a few institutions it wanted developed and did not offer any concrete proposals on how to develop them to the government.

Now irked office bearers say powerful land sharks have used their influence to call-off a drive to remove at least some illegal occupiers of Wakf land resulting in the board recalling its notice issued to the management of the Anwarul Uloom college which illegally took over 14,000 square yards of valuable Wakf land at Mallepally.

That happened, officials say, even after the state government notified the land as owned by the Wakf Board in a government gazette giving precise details of the boundaries to leave no margin for error.

According to one independent estimate as much as 50 per cent of the Wakf institutions do not come directly under the control of the board which on paper at least is India's richest.

While it failed to give any proposals for development of its properties or institutions, the list included the Woodland complex in Kurnool, the Masjid Bi Eidgah Bilali near Masab Tank, the Wakf complex itself, the Bahadur-ud-Dowla complex and the Station Bazar Wakf complex at Nizamabad.

Officials in the board accused Wakf workers and some board members of stealing documents relating to the Anwarul Uloom institutions and of helping the college management to prepare fake documents which allegedly proved the land was legally bought and was not forcibly taken over.

Confronted by the sudden "new" evidence the board called off its operation and in one case, even surrendered back management of the Sir Nizamat Jung property spread over 10,000 yards at Narayanguda that it had taken over.