Munampam, a lesser known fisherfolk-settlement area, at the northern end of Vypin island, just 30 kilometers away from the Kochi city, has suddenly become a flashpoint, due to the immoral, illegal and illogical interference of the Waqf board in the life of the people in the name of almighty Allah. It is believed that the rules and regulations of the Waqf have been revealed by the prophet Mohammed to Khalif Umer and it has become the part of Sharia, the Islamic legal system. Permission has been granted to every true and faithful Muslim to submit any of his possessions, including land, life and buildings, to Allah to do charitable services to the Muslim brethren.
According to Islamic faith, the Waqf activities have been started by Khalif Umer when, he donated a piece of land to prophet Mohammed to ensure the use of the same for charity. Then, prophet Mohammed advised the Khalif Umer to submit the possessions, unconditionally with full devotion, to the almighty Allah. He warned the Khalif Umer that whatever is submitted to Allah should not be taken back and which should not be used for any purpose other than the one specified at the time of submission of the same. The prophet further clarified that the Waqf property should not be alienated or it should not be given to the legal heirs of the doner because, the doner or his legal heirs could not enjoy any legal right over the property submitted to Allah. It is morally and legally incorrect to take back the ownership of the property without the consent of the almighty Allah.
Islam says Allah never directly speaks to man but He speaks through the chosen messenger to prophet and it is the duty of the prophet to reveal the words of God to man. Islam believes that Mohamed was the last prophet and he had already come and gone. Therefore, at present there is no chance to know the will of God. Hence, “once a Waqf ever a Waqf’ that is if, anything has been given to God as Waqf, it has been given forever and the rules regarding the Waqf has been incorporated as the part of sharia law.
The Waqf Board of Kerala extended its claim on the small pieces of land owned and operated by the rustic people of Munampam on the ground that the entire Munampam land is a Waqf property. The Waqf Board claimed that, it enjoys the unconditional legal immunity to occupy any piece of land, without giving mandatary legal notice to owners of the land because, the law of land empowers them to do so. Naturally, the Board grabbed the six hundred pieces of land, extended to 404 acres, purchased and possessed by the people of Munampam for more than five decades, reminding them the heavenly law of the Allah, the creator of the whole world, that “once a Waqf ever a Waqf”. Normally, land grabbing is an offence punishable under section 441 of IPC. Strangely if, it is being done by the Waqf board, it becomes a legally valid action. The Waqf board is not legally responsible to observe any legal formality, including to send a formal notice to the land owner as, part of the protection of natural justice guaranteed by the constitution of India to the victims. The land-grabbing activities of the board has not been even subjected to judicial scrutiny because, the Waqf enactment made by the British in 1913 and the subsequent amendments effected in 1923, 1954, 1995, and 2013 empower the board to grab any piece of land simply declaring it as a Waqf property if the chief executive of the Waqf board to have reason to believe so.
The story of the Munampam-land-grabbing incident began in 1904 when the Maharaja of Travancore leased 600 hundred acres of dry and wet land to one Sathaar Sait, who came over to Kochi from Katch to do trade and commerce, for agricultural purposes. Sathaar Sait handed over the property to his descended Siddiq Sait and it is believed that he made it a Waqf property. Again, it is narrated that, he handed over the property to the trustees of the Faruq college trust, Calicut, with the right to sell out the property. The members of the trust in turn sold the property to those who settled there for decades and the sale deed was registered with the registry of the sub registrar office and they started remitting land tax after fulfilling all the legal formalities. Any person of sound logical mind can smell a rat in the narration that the Munampam property had been made a Waqf property and then, the same property had been handed over to the trust with selling rights because Siddiq Sait did not enjoy any right to hand over the property to anyone if he had made it a Waqf property as per the rules and regulations of Sharia law.
The reasonable conclusion, in this context, is that, either he had not made it Waqf property or he had not handed over the property to Faruq college trust. However, the trustees of the Faruq college sold the property at market price and they left the scene after collecting the money from the poor and innocent people who are incapable to understand the draconian designs kept under the carpet of the deal by the Waqf board and the Faruq Trust. It is at this juncture that, the Waqf board entered the scene projecting their innocence concealing the treachery they practiced and they claimed that the Munampam land was Waqf property. They did not fail to remind the people of Munampam that, nobody has any right either to sell or buy a Waqf property because it has been prohibited by Sharia law. Hence, the sale deeds should be cancelled and the right granted to the buyers to remit land tax by the revenue department should be stayed. In the meanwhile, Mr. K P A Majeed, a member of the legislative assembly and the then time state General secretary of the Muslim League raised the issue in the assembly in July 2022 and he alleged that the Waqf land in the Munampam had been illegally grabbed by a group of people. He accused the government for its failure to evict the illegal occupants and restore the land to the Waqf board. Mr. Abdurahman, the minister in charge of the Waqf assured the house that steps had already been taken to capture the land from the illegal encroachers. As a consequence, the revenue authorities issued stop memo to the village officers banning receipt of land tax from title holders of the land in 2022 itself.
This is the context in which the legally purchased title deed owners of the land started peaceful agitation against the Waqf Board, the trustees of the Faruq college and the state government against the denial of natural justice to them. They raised fundamental questions regarding the rule of law. They asked the legal as well as the government authorities that how is it possible to apply different laws to the one and the same issue? Any person who possesses a legally valid title deed is empowered to remit the land tax to the revenue authorities as per the existing rules and regulations. However, that legal right has been denied to the people of Munampam due to the application of sharia law. The Waqf is being regulated by the sharia law which is applicable only to the Muslims. The non-Muslims are not bound to obey the commands of the unseen Allah, the omnipotent God who goes beyond the limits of space and time. Though, he is the abode of unconditional mercy, nobody can experience him as he remains at realm beyond the reach of human sense organs and mind. Those who believes in idol worship and polytheism, according to Islamic faith, are the Kafir or sinners. They can be redeemed only after they embrace Islam. Since, the people of Munampam are the believers of the Christian and the Hindu faiths, and since, they refuse to embrace Islamic faith, they are not within the ambit of the Islamic law. Hence, the application of Islamic law on a group of people who do not subscribe Islamic faith amounts to the encroachment of a foreign religion to their religious faith which is ultra virus to the letter and spirit of the constitution of India.
According to Islamic faith a property made Waqf can never be alienated. If, it is true then, how could Siddiq Sait to make it a Waqf property and to give the same property to Fruq college with the right to sell it out at the same time. Since, the Siddiq Sait and the trustees of Faruq college trust subscribe Islamic faith, it is reasonable to believe that both of them are aware of the rules and regulations of the Sharia law regarding Waqf. If, they had done the breach of trust related to the sale of the Waqf property to the settlers of Munampam then, they must be booked for cheating the God and man alike. Mr. Majeed, who raised the issue in the assembly, carefully kept avoiding any reference of the role of Waqf board and the trustees of the Faruq college, for the reasons that, the chairman and members of the Waqf board and the members of the trust were the members of the Muslim league. Unfortunately, the present Faruq college authorities, the Chairman and members of the present Waqf board and the leaders of the agitating Muslim Organizations, including the Muslim League, keep conspicuous silence on the role of the breachers of trust. Instead, they accuse the innocent people who purchased the land from the self-professed legal owners of the land. Hence, they demand to initiate legal action against those who played treachery to cheat the poor fisherfolk.
The fisher folk of the Munampam who lost wealth and land have been abandoned by the ruling Left Democratic Front and the opposition United Democratic Front. They even brutally betrayed the people of Munampam when they unitedly pass a resolution against the proposed Waqf amendment act by the central government to remove illegal, immoral, illogical content from the existing Waqf act. They tried to mislead them by proposing an out of court settlement. Mr. Kunjaalikutty, the national general secretary of the Muslim League, publicly argued that as, all the major Muslim organizations unanimously demand an amicable settlement of the issue, the people of Munampam would never be evicted from their land. Mr. Kunjalikutty is either not aware of the provisions of the Waqf enactments or he willfully conceals the draconian content of the Waqf act that prevails in India to cheat the people of Munampam.
According to the Waqf act anyone, including a non-Muslim, can submit any property as Waqf at any point of time in any part of India. Originally, the rules and regulations of the Waqf were applicable only to Muslims. But in India the scope of the act has been extended to non-Muslims violating the Sharia law. According to Quran a non-Muslim is a person who acts against the will of Allah. Allah can accept the offerings submitted by the Muslims alone because, they alone obey the will of God. The non-Muslims, on the contrary, challenges the authority of Allah by worshiping the perishable things as imperishable God. Hence, they deserve to be killed as part of jihad, for which the God will extend rewards even if he “slay some one or get slain” in the act of Jihad. Then, the question is under what law and logic the makers of Waqf enactments incorporated such provisions in the act to submit the properties of the Haram people (according to Islamic faith, all non-Muslims are Haramis, that is, the sinners and sinners are not theologically empowered to submit anything to God because, the Islamic God accepts only Halal items) to God as Waqf property?
However, the Indian law makers included the non-Muslims in the ambit of the law defining donors to submit properties to God on the basis of “reason to believe so” and the “property by use”. The clause “reason to believe so” is highly subjective hence, the decisions of the chief executive can be arbitrary. But the subjective and arbitrary decisions of are being thrust upon the people to grab land of the land of the innocent people as in the case of the Munampam. The clause “property by use” is more dangerous and arbitrary than the clause “reason to believe so” because, it empowers the Waqf board to extend its claims even on the rented properties, if such properties have been used by a Muslim. The clause which empowers the Waqf to snatch rented properties used by Muslims has been used as a tool to practice land jihad. That is why they snatch the properties of temples and churches in the name Allah and Waqf all over India. At present the people of the Islamic faith are empowered to make the whole of the India land as Waqf property. Moreover, no written document on the declaration of a property as waqf by a donor is necessary to make it a Waqf property and it requires only an oral statement of the donor in the presence of two persons and those witnesses are free to reveal the same even after the death of a donor. This can be adjudged as nothing but the unfettered practice of over appeasement of the Muslim minorities to ensure the support of the vote bank they constituted by the successive congress governments led by Jawaharlal Nehru, Indira Gandhi, P V Narasimha Rao, Manmohan Singh etc. Therefore, the Waqf act should be amended
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