By Mohd Ismail Khan, TwoCircles.net,
Hyderabad: Last year government of Andhra Pradesh and its ministry of tourism had signed a MoU with Hyderabad golf association. Based on the MoU government had to handover 105 acres of the 150 acre land in and around the Golconda fort. This land was meant to develop a golf club to attract the tourists.
The 105 acres of land comes under the Naya Qila area of the fort, an Archaeological Survey of India [ASI]-protected monument. The ASI readily gave its consent to the MoU with provisions demanding special care to protect the two heritage mosques Mustafa Khan and Mullah Khayali in the Golconda limits. But now it is the land in the vicinity of these mosques, which has turned out to be the golf club land. The graveyard and the Wakf land of the mosque which has been now earmarked for the golf course is worth Rs.800 crore.
A controversy erupted when a local resident of the Golconda fort area filed a writ petition in the Andhra Pradesh high court claiming that an ancient graveyard that existed close to the mosque was destroyed by the Hyderabad Golf Association [HGA], which means HGA carried out work on the Wakf land owned by the mosques which they have pledged to protect under the MoU signed with the government.
The high court passed an order on November 2, by which the court directed the Wakf Board to segregate its land in cooperation with the ASI. The ongoing construction work on the Golconda fort area was stopped on the orders of the District collector of Hyderabad and the MRO was asked to furnish the details regarding the area.
Complete survey was done on the Masjid Mustafa Khan and the adjoining Muslim Graveyard. On the directives of the high court, the Wakf board carried out survey of the Naya Qila premises where the Mustafa Khan Mosque [survey no. 40] is located. In the survey report submitted to the joint collector [Hyderabad district], the board said that, in spite of the claim by the additional advocate general that no civil work has been undertaken in the area, it was found that leveling and filling of the land with the help of heavy machinery was underway.
The board besides noted that the HGA had destroyed a well and a canal that supplied water to the mosque. Andhra Pradesh Wakf Board along with representatives of ASI-Hyderabad and state revenue department, had a meeting with the joint collector Yogita Rana and he stated that, roughly around a meager 1,650 square meters of land [area of the mosque] was identified as Wakf Board’s share in the Naya Qila; The graveyard, which the board has maintained for long, was declared as the government land.
Wakf board was disgruntled by the decision of the joint collector; the board is quite sure of the fact that the actual share of the two mosques and the grave yard is 28 acres and 11 guntas. It said it will approach court to conduct a soil and chemical test, in the whole area allotted to the golf club to exactly point out the ancient grave yard land which is now being used by the HGA.
HGA anyway claimed that, they had kept these mosques and graveyards excluded in its project to develop golf course. They assured that the mosques and graves have not been desecrated during the developmental works This is how quite often in Hyderabad; precious Wakf properties owned by ancient mosques are converted into government properties and sold away to different firms. This whole controversy won’t have evolved if Muslims in that area had taken enough care and attention of those two old mosques. Now when we mourn over the demolition of Babri Masjid, there are many other mosques and wakf properties seeking our immediate attention.