State waqf board members soon

NT Correspondent Bengaluru: Congress’ Muslim MLAs and MLCs met in Bengaluru on Sunday to decide on appointing members to the Karnataka State Board of Auqaf (KSBA). The meeting was attended by Minister for Housing, Minority Welfare and Waqf BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan, Congress MLA from Shivajinagar Rizwan Arshad, Congress MLC and Chief Whip in the Council Saleem Ahmed, Congress MLA from Shantinagar and Bangalore Development Authority (BDA) Chairman NA Haris and others. Waqf is an Islamic endowment, usually land or in some cases, a building or other assets, which are donated permanently in the name of God for charitable purposes like education and the like. The Karnataka State Board of Auqaf has 11 members including the Chairman. Back in September last year, Chitradurga Congress leader Anwar Basha contested for the post of the board’s Chairman unopposed.

The post had been lying vacant since July 5 since Shafi Saadi quit from the position.Sources said that the leaders were nearing a consensus for the memberships but were refraining from finalizing names because of absence of some leaders from the meeting. Among the absentees were Minister for Municipal Administration and Hajj Rahim Khan and Congress MLA and Karnataka Pradesh Congress Committee (KPCC) working president Tanveer Sait. The state board manages some 45,468 properties. Their responsibilities include registering of waqf properties, development and maintenance of the same, apart from preventing encroachment of said plots and other tasks. On condition of anonymity, sources said that the attendees in the meeting also discussed the KJ Halli and DJ Halli riots of 2020.

It is said that they are consulting legal experts on how to approach the case. The riots on August 11, 2020 had broken out after a post by a nephew of then sitting MLA Akhanda Srinivas Murthy wrote an incendiary post on social media. Alleged refusal to file a First Information (FIR) led a mob to pelt stones on KJ Halli and DJ Halli police stations, besides Murthy’s house in Kaval Byrasandra. Local Muslims say many innocent youths in the community had been arrested and languishing in jail.