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Prominent Christian organisations like the Syro-Malabar Church and the Kerala Catholic Bishop Council have approached the Joint Parliamentary Committee regarding the Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2024.
Around 610 families are living in the fear of evacuation in Cherai, a fishing village Kerala’s Kochi, as they have alleged that their properties are being claimed by the Waqf board.
Sharing the letters written by the Syro-Malabar Church and the KCBC on X, Union Minister Kiren Rijiju assured that their grievances will be addressed.
“The issue of Waqf land has been affecting people across communities. I feel pained to see eminent Christian leaders having to express their anguish in this manner. I assure them that their grievances will be addressed,” Rijiju wrote on September 28. He also expressed confidence in the Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC).
In their submissions to the JPC, both church organisations raised concern regarding the properties belonging to Christian families in the Cherai and Munambam areas of Kerala’s Ernakulam district being “illegally” claimed by the Waqf Board.
On September 10, Archbishop Andrews Thazath, chairman of the Syro-Malabar Public Affairs Commission, stated in a letter addressed to the JPC that several properties in the Ernakulam district that belonged to Christian families for generations in the area have been unlawfully claimed by the Waqf Board, proceeding to legal battles and the displacement of rightful owners.
The Archbishop stated in the letter that nearly 600 families are under the threat of losing their properties.
The Archbishop urged the JPC to consider the predicament of the people in these areas and several other parts across the country who are under the threat of losing their household in view of the unlawful claims made by the Waqf Board.
In a similar submission, Cardinal Baselios Cleemis, President of the Kerala Catholic Bishops Council (KCBC), also raised alarm regarding the Waqf board’s illegal claims on the properties of over 600 families in Munambam Beach, Ernakulam.
The village in Kerala is facing a severe crisis as 610 families fear eviction due to a land dispute with the Waqf Board. The villagers, mostly fishermen, have lived there for over a century.
According to them, the land was purchased by Siddique Sait in 1902 and later donated to Feroke College in 1950. A long-standing dispute between the fishermen and the college was resolved in 1975, with the High Court ruling in favour of the college. Locals then began buying land from the college, starting in 1989.
However, in 2022, the village office suddenly claimed the land belonged to the Waqf Board, denying the villagers’ revenue rights and preventing them from selling or mortgaging their properties.