Former chairman of Karnataka State Minorities Commission and senior BJP leader Anwar Manippady on Tuesday slammed Karnataka Wakf minister Shashikala Jolle for her recent press statement on the embezzlement of Wakf properties in the state.
Jolle is "misguiding" people and trying to "suppress" the facts about the Anwar Manippady committee (Wakf scam) report, alleged Manippady referring to the minister's recent press meet, where she had admitted that she had not read the report. However, she had stated that the extent of registered Wakf land in the state was 32,000 acres and the land embezzled was 8,400 acres.
"Jolle's statement appears to be an attempt to misguide people. She should do her homework. The report says 54,000 acres of land have been registered in the Wakf Board and 27,00 acres is still unregistered. Around 29,000 acres of registered land has been embezzled," said Manippady.
On March 23, 2012, Manippady, who was the chairman of the Committee had submitted the Wakf lands report to the state government, and the Committee had reported that around 29,000 acres of Wakf land (valued at 2.30 lakh crore in 2012) had been encroached and embezzled by prominent political leaders and bureaucrats.
A decade later, Anwar Manippady continues to fight a lone battle, as subsequent governments have evaded tabling the report as prominent politicians have been named as encroachers in his report.
The report alleges the involvement of senior Congress leaders Mallikarjun Kharge, former Rajya Sabha member Rehman Khan, late chief minister Dharam Singh, former Union minister late C.K. Jaffer Sharief and former minister Qamar ul Islam, former ministers Tanveer Sait and Roshan Baig, Shanthinagar MLA N.A. Haris, MLC C.M. Ibrahim, former minister Hindasgeri, former MP Narasing Rao Suryavamshi and former MLAs Iqbal Ansari and Syed Yasin, along with several IAS and IPS officers belonging to the minority community.
The BJP leader is upset not only because the Congress (Siddaramaiah) government evaded tabling the report in the Assembly and the Council, but because the Yediyurappa government too chose to hush up the report till the apex court order compelled it to table the report in the House.
The Yediyurappa government tabled the report in September 2020, though the apex court, on March 30, 2019, had dismissed the SLP filed by the state government challenging a high court order (of March 28, 2016), which directed the government to table the report in both Houses of the legislature.
In May this year, Manipppady had written a letter to Prime Minister Narendra Modi accusing then chief minister B.S. Yediyurappa and his son B.Y. Vijayendra of "conniving" with the Congress leaders and "suppressing" the Wakf scam report.
Manippady had also challenged Yediyurappa to hand over the Wakf scam report and Lokayukta fact-finding report to the CBI and also keep the Wakf Board in suspended animation.
This time, Manippady, in a letter to Chief Minister Basavaraj Bommai, has sought that the wakf report be investigated by a sitting judge of the High Court or the CBI.