The 654 acres of land in question is in village Kelshi in Ratnagiri district of Konkan region. The minister has ordered the state Waqf Board to conduct an inquiry into this issue.
Khan said that such properties, gifted by Shivaji and Mogul emperors, should be under the direct control of the Waqf Board, which he said would use it for the welfare of the Muslim community.
“The land gifted by Shivaji to Suhrawardy was for the construction of a shrine, which later fell into the hands of a trust which in turn gave the land to a businessman to mine bauxite. About 113.85 acres of the 654 acres of gifted land was handed over for mining. Now the land is under litigation with several people staking their claim,” Khan said.
In another development, Shiv Sena leader and legislator Ramdas Kadam on Friday tabled a breach of privilege motion against Chief Minister Ashok Chavan for changing his stand on declaring the disputed areas along the Maharashtra-Karnataka border as federal territory.
The breach of privilege motion will be admitted only if the speaker of the Maharashtra Legislative Council accepts it. But sources said it is very unlikely that the speaker would accept the motion.
Kadam said that a resolution to declare the disputed areas as a federally-administrated territory was passed by the Maharashtra Assembly, but Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was not briefed of the same by Chavan when he led an all-party delegation that met the prime minister on the border dispute. He said that it is this reason for which he had moved the breach of privilege.
Meanwhile, former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu, who was arrested on Friday for violating curfew in Dharmabad town of Nanded district, refused to apply for bail when he was brought before a local court on Saturday.
Federal Minister for Heavy Industries Vilasrao Deshmukh, commenting on the agitation by Naidu, said that it was nothing but a political stunt. “There is nothing unusual in this as Naidu is known to perform such stunts to boost his image in Andhra Pradesh,” he said.
