KOZHIKODE: Akhila Kerala Waqf Samrakshana Samithi has alleged that UDF leaders including Panakkad Syed Sadiq Ali Shihab Thangal, P K Kunhalikutty and V D Satheesan have political interests in intervening in the controversial issue of the land at Munambam. Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, samithi general secretary Abdul Khader Karanthur said the UDF leaders are eyeing the elections to the local bodies and the assembly.
“Kunhalikutty convened a meeting of Muslim organisations in Kozhikode and said he would talk on their behalf in the issue. After that no organisation is coming forward to air their views or showing courage to say that the land is a waqf property,” he said.
Asked about Thangal’s meeting with the Bishops on the issue, he said it is a one- upmanship to score a point before the government’s intervention. “It is a legal issue pending before the High Court. What can the IUML do in a legal issue? It is up to the government to solve the problem,” the samithi leaders said. They added that the government is moving on the right track, considering the legal ramifications.
To a question on Kerala Nadvathul Mujahideen state president T P Abdulla Koya Madani’s contention that the land is not a waqf property, Abdul Khader said he should not have made such a comment as a Muslim scholar. Asked about Opposition Leader V D Satheesan’s remark that the land is not a waqf property, he said Satheesan is not a mufti to pass a judgment on the issue.
The samithi squarely blamed the Farook College management for the present crisis. “They should not have sold the waqf property. Now they are playing hide and seek game and are not coming forward with any explanation. Kunhalikutty is helping them in the game,” he said. The samithi demanded a judicial probe into the whole episode of the land controversy in Munambam.
Meanwhile, it has come to the notice that the IUML had taken a totally different stand on the issue of the land at Munambam two years ago. The party staged a protest in Kozhikode in November 2022 when the government allowed the people in Munambam to pay tax for their property. The IUML alleged that the government decision would help the encroachers who had grabbed the land given to Farook College.
IUML state vice-president and Kerala State Waqf Board member M C Mayin Haji had inaugurated the protest meeting in front of the Waqf Board office in Kozhikode. Waqf Board member P V Sainudeen, IUML district president Ummer Pandikasala, general secretary M A Razak and other party leaders had attended the meeting, which demanded stopping the encroachment on the waqf land.
When contacted, IUML state general secretary P M A Salam said the party had not organised any such protest in Kozhikode. Why should we stage a protest in Kozhikode, he asked. Salam said that the government should solve the issue instead of drawing political mileage from communal polarisation.
League leaders meeting bishops won’t address waqf issue, says Muraleedharan
T’Puram: In a clear indication that the BJP intends to keep the Waqf issue alive, senior party leader V Muraleedharan said the Indian Union Muslim League (IUML) leaders calling on the bishops would not put an end to the matter. Addressing the BJP’s protest march to the Secretariat on Tuesday, the former Union minister said that the IUML’s attempts to mislead the Church leadership will not yield results. “The Waqf issue is akin to the Damocles sword hanging over the common man in the country. By comparing the Waqf amendment with minority rights, the CPM and the Congress are in fact cheating the people,” he opined.