Waqf Act amendments aim to correct past mistakes, not target Muslims: Kiren Rijiju
Kiren Rijiju said that Waqf law was amended because certain provisions had granted “unprecedented power and authority to the Waqf Boards.”
Union minority affairs minister Kiren Rijiju on Tuesday said the amendments to the Waqf Act were not targeted at the Muslim community but were meant to correct “past mistakes.”
While addressing the media in Kochi, Rijiju said the government's intention was to ensure there is no provision for anyone in India to “forcefully and unilaterally” take over another person's land.
He claimed that the Waqf law was amended because certain provisions had granted “unprecedented power and authority to the Waqf Boards.”
“This is not targeted at the Muslim community. It is to correct mistakes of the past,” the minister added.
Accompanied by Union minister of state George Kurien and state BJP president Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Rijiju said that following the amendment, “there will be no arbitrary declaration of a land as Waqf property.”
His statement comes amid protests from various Muslim groups against the amendment, some of which have turned violent in parts of West Bengal.
The Waqf Bill, passed by Parliament, received the President's assent on April 5. While the ruling NDA has strongly defended the legislation as beneficial for minorities, the opposition has termed it as “anti-Muslim.”
Waqf land misuse pushed Muslim youth into menial jobs: PM Modi
On April 14, while addressing a public rally in Haryana's Hisar, Prime Minister Narendra Modi said Waqf land should have been used to help the poor, but its misuse forced young Muslim boys into menial jobs.
“Across the country, there are lakhs of hectares of land in the name of Waqf. This land, this property, should have been used for the welfare of the poor, helpless women and children. And if it had been used honestly, my young Muslim boys wouldn’t have had to spend their lives fixing cycle punctures,” Modi had said.
He said that the Waqf land benefited only a few land mafias, while the backward Muslim community gained nothing.
“This only benefited a handful of land mafias. The backward Muslim community did not gain anything. And whose land were these land mafias grabbing? They were seizing the land of Dalits, backward classes, Adivasis, and widowed women,” he added.
