By TCN Staff Reporter,
New Delhi: In the wake of soil turning out gold in the country, complaints about alleged sellout of graveyards, dead or alive, are reaching media at regular interval. The latest is from Karnal district in Haryana where a practicing lawyer and social activist has made serious charges against the Haryana Wakf Board.
The graveyard of Chand Sarai (Khasra No. 4489) in Karnal district is said to be the latest victim of nefarious nexus between wakf board officials and land mafia. The thin Muslim population of the neighborhood got shocked when a few months back they woke up to plotting of the graveyard that was going on in connivance of the wakf board officials. People protested and the plotting was stopped. But Adv. Mohd Rafique Chauhan alleges that a group of local Muslims were pacified and charmed over with a plot for a madrasa.
“Officers of Haryana Wakf Board gave on lease to land mafia the graveyard of Chand Sarai in Karnal (khasra no. 4489) and in turn got huge amount. This happened three months ago. The land mafia did plotting of the land and began selling to people. The graves were dug out by JBC machine. When local Muslims protested and informed the district officials, some local Muslims were pacified and promised a 1200 metre plot for a madrasa, and the plotting continued,” alleges Adv. Chauhan who is also president of Haryana Muslim Khidmat Sabha.
Talking to TCN over phone, he also alleged that when he filed an RTI with the state wakf board seeking details of lessees of wakf properties in the state, his application was rejected foolishly saying the board is a religious institution and thus does not fall in the ambit of RTI.
The Sabha had sought record of lessee through RTI, the Haryana Wakf Board did not give information saying this is a religious institution and does not come under RTI, said Adv. Chauhan.
Blasting the wakf board’s idea, he says RTI Act article 2(h) says any department or institution constituted under constitutional provision, parliament or state assemblies rulings or by government orders, they come under RTI. Haryana wakf board was set up under wakf act 1995 article 13(1) by Haryana govt on in Aug 2003 through a notification.
Adv. Chuhan says that he has been fighting for this unfenced Chand Sarai graveyard for some years. Even the case had once reached to court and he won the case in favor of the graveyard in 2008. After that he had also worked for fencing of the graveyard and even district administration had released some amount for that, but the fencing never happened.
Karnal, once populated by Muslims, became devoid of Muslims after partition when the minority community members migrated to Pakistan leaving behind mosques and graveyards. After decades, people from Bihar, Uttar Pradesh and other parts of the country, mostly labors, began coming here in search of livelihood and got settled here. Still, there is very low population of Muslims.