KOZHIKODE: Pushed by its own leaders, including national organising secretary E T Muhammad Basheer, state secretary K M Shaji and MLA M K Muneer, the IUML has finally stated that the disputed land at Munambam is indeed waqf property.
Until now, the party leadership, including state president Panakkad Syed Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal and national general secretary P K Kunhalikutty, had been playing hide-and-seek, without clearly coming out on the exact nature of the land.
They didn’t contradict Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan’s repeated assertion that the land is not waqf property. The leadership had remained silent when some legal personalities close to the IUML hinted that the Munambam land was given to the Farook College management under a gift deed and therefore it cannot be considered as waqf.
But close on the heels of Shaji stating that IUML does not share Satheesan’s view on Munambam land, Basheer told reporters in New Delhi that Munambam is indeed waqf land.
“At no point had the party said it was not waqf property. All documents prove this fact,” he said. Though Basheer said he doesn’t want to contradict Satheesan’s claim, it was very clear that all in the party are not happy with the leader of Opposition’s stand.
IUML had placed Sadiq Ali Thangal at the centre of the fire-fighting mission to douse the communal flare-up between communities over the land. Thangal had met the Latin Catholic bishops as part of his mission, but many in the IUML believed that the peace mission should not be taken up by concealing the facts about the land and by compromising the waqf claim.
Also, the suggestion of the Muslim Coordination Committee that met under the leadership of Thangal in Kozhikode last month was to find a lasting solution without forsaking the waqf claim.
No more remarks on Munambam, says Thangal
But an impression has been created that Muslim organisations have no problem in giving up the land unilaterally. The mood of the community was to go for a compromise without forfeiting the claim. Sadiq Ali Thangal and Kunhalikutty were hoping that they could sweep the discussion on waqf under the carpet and work towards a rapprochement, which was sabotaged by their own party leaders.
Driven to the wall, Kunhalikutty on Monday clarified that the party never said the land is not waqf property. He said none who raised different voices in the party wanted to evict the people currently residing at Munambam. He blamed the government for inordinately delaying a solution to the issue.
Sensing the danger of the emergence of differing voices within the UDF, Thangal asked the party leaders not to carry the discussions on the issue forward. Addressing a press conference in Malappuram, Thangal said there will not be any further remarks from the party leaders on the issue.
“Everyone admits that Babri Masjid stood at waqf land. Organisations like Muslim Personal Law Board said that it is for the Supreme Court to take a decision and all accepted the decision of the court,” Thangal said.