Date:10/07/2004 URL: http://www.thehindu.com/2004/07/10/stories/2004071009540300.htm

Karnataka - Bidar

Panel resolves land dispute

By Our Staff Correspondent

BIDAR, JULY 9. The police and officials of the district administration organised a peace committee meeting in Dubalgundi village in Humnabad taluk on Wednesday to resolve a dispute regarding the allocation of revenue land to a local mosque.

While the managing committee of the Jam-e-Masjid, Idgah, and the graveyard of the village claims that 5.70 hectares of land in Survey No. 228 belongs to it, Hindus in the village, led by the gram panchayat member Shantappa Pasaragi, have contested the claim. They said that only 2.4 hectares of the land was given to the masjid by the land grant tribunal. The rest, they say, was earmarked for the construction of a bus stand, a playground, and a vegetable market.

The issue recently came up when Mohammad Nawaz Khan `Pathan', a member of the State Waqf Board wrote to the Humnabad MLA and Minister for Animal Husbandry and Waqf, Mirajuddin Patel, to take steps to allow the masjid to take possession of the land.

In the letter, Mr. Khan claimed that the land grant tribunal, local courts, and the High Court had accepted that the entire stretch belonged to the masjid. Officials say that the High Court had only ordered status quo on the issue and had not delivered any verdict.