April 4 (UPI) — India’s upper house Friday passed a bill changing the way donated Muslim properties, known as Waqf properties, worth billions of dollars are governed.
The vote was 288-232 with Muslim leaders and the political opposition saying it is unconstitutional and violates minority Muslim rights.
“The legislation passed by parliament will boost transparency and also safeguard people’s rights,” Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi wrote on X.
Waqf properties are donated for the benefit of Muslim communities and include mosques, orphanages, graveyards and madrassas or religious schools.
Opponents of the Waqf amendment bill say it will allow more government control, in part by allowing non-Muslims to be on Waqf boards that adminster the donated properties trusts.
According to legal website LiveLaw MP Asaduddin Owaisi Friday challenged the Waqf (Amendment) Bill in India’s Supreme Court.
The legal petition said in part that the bill “charts a new course of diluting the protections to waqfs undermining the rights of the minority communities in its properties and expanding the interference of the State over waqf administration.”
According to Indian Minister for Parliamentary and Minority Affairs Kiren Rijiju the Waqf amendment bill “is about transparency, not interference” and is intended to guard against misuse.
According to critics of the Modi government local officials from Modi’s party have bulldozed Muslim properties after alleging encroachment in defiance of court orders.
Right-wing groups have claimed several mosques asserting they were at one time Hindu worship sites.
“I am requesting the government: At least do not snatch away our places of worship, do not run bulldozers over our homes, and let us be at peace in our graves,” Muslim MP Imran Pratapgarhi said.
In India, Waqfs manage nearly a million acres across more than 800,000 properties that were worth over $14 billion in 2006.
