Srinagar: Chairperson of the Jammu and Kashmir Waqf Board, Dr. Darakhshan Andrabi has alleged that the local political parties in the state are unnecessarily politicizing the decision to impose a complete ban on the collection of donations by people who are permanently occupying certain places at shrines.
"Those who are opposing this decision, their share has perhaps stopped coming from there. They are just trying to mislead people by issuing unnecessary statements day by day," she said in an exclusive conversation with the ETV Bharat.
She further said that several other shrines including Sheikh Hamza Makhdoom (RA), Ziarat Sharif Abdul Qadir Jilani (RA), Khanyar, Khanqah Maali, Charar Sharif, Pakharpura, and other shrines under the Waqf Board are being forcibly dragged into the controversy. "The sanctity of these worship places is being spoiled as some unauthorized people are asking for donations on behalf of these places. 70 percent of the donation money is going into the pockets of these people," he said,
In this way, by organizing the system of donations collected in the shrines, the income of the Waqf Board increased by 5 times per day. However, the political parties here are trying to politicize this positive initiative.
Andrabi, the chairperson of the Waqf Board, rejected all the allegations and said that BJ has nothing to do with this, nor have such decisions been taken under any particular agenda, but the only agenda is that the Waqf Board is to maintain the sanctity of the shrines and spend the waqf income on construction and development and welfare of the people.
In response to a question, she said that the Waqf Board has taken a decision to increase the annual rent on owned shops and other commercial property and the work has officially started on that too. However, if there is any objection to paying any new rent. So they can leave waqf shops and other commercial property. No force will be imposed on them.
She informed all the shopkeepers that they will have to collect the rent under the new agreement from this month onwards and action will be taken against anyone who fails to collect the rent. Andrabi said that the Shrine Board, Mata Vaishnava Devi Trust, etc. have done good work only when they are in the right hands and their income is properly utilized for construction and development works.
In this case, we have to do a lot of work in this regard. New projects are also to be started, in which the establishment of a cancer hospital in Jammu and Kashmir is included in the priorities. For which not only the income of the endowment will be used, but many sincere people of Kashmir living in foreign countries want to help in the construction of this good work i.e. cancer hospital.
During the discussion, she said that attention is also being paid to improving the management of the schools running under the supervision of the Waqf and after a few months, a better and significant change will be seen in the functioning of the Waqf schools also.
