VIJAYAWADA: Minority woman leader and Tahera Trust founder Zahara Begum has welcomed survey of Wakf properties in Uttar Pradesh and bulldozing of illegal structures on these lands by Yogi Adityanath regime.
She sought similar action in states of Andhra Pradesh and Telangana too for protecting Wakf assets or getting them released from clutches of land and political mafias.
Zahara Begum maintained that Waqf properties, whether belonging to Shia or Sunni communities, must be used for collective benefit of Muslims and not left to exploitation by a few with political or muscle power.
She appealed to Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy and his Telangana counterpart K. Chandrasekhar Rao to order survey of Wakf properties, like being done by the UP government. She said occupied lands must be resumed from encroachers and used for the benefit of the entire Muslim community.
The Tahera Trust founder objected to MP Asaduddin Owaisi criticism that UP government is systematically targeting Muslim Wakf properties. She felt that Muslim Wakf properties have already been targeted for ages. They are being enjoyed by so-called mafias, encroachers, and land grabbers under the patronage of political heads.
Zahara Begum termed the UP survey as “systematic and systemic correction of Wakf property records” to benefit Muslims of that state.
She said India has over 6 lakh Wakf properties, with Uttar Pradesh alone having around 1.5 lakh Sunni and 12,000 Shia properties. Majority of them are in clutches of encroachers. State governments throughout the country must emulate UP government to get such encroached properties released, so that they could be utilised for the larger benefit of Shia and Sunni communities, she underlined.
