00:00This is Khan Kaimala, a 650-year-old shrine in the middle of Srinagar, built in memory of Shahi
00:06Hamdan, a Sufi scholar, poet and saint from Iran's Hamdan province. Yasin Zahra is the Mujahver,
00:14the traditional caretaker of the shrine like his father, his grandfather and generations before
00:20him. But in 2022, Zahra charity box was taken away. The Jammu and Kashmir work board, now under
00:28central control, banned Nasruniyahs, the age-old practice of devotees offering alms to shrine caretakers.
00:48The board currently administers over 32,000 canals of land, yet much of it remains undocumented.
00:56Earlier, the work-by-user principle allowed recognition of land simply through consistent
01:01community use. Now, under the new central workflow, those unwritten bonds face legal invalidation,
01:09people fare, their sacred lands might be disputed, reclassified or quietly erased.
01:15In parliament, BJP minister Kiran Rijuju praised the board's work, citing Rs. 40 crore
01:22in revenue, under Dr. Dharakshan Andhra B, a BJP-appointed tapison of the Jain Kivak board.
01:28The first time we had problems here, we had to end it.
01:33Three years ago, there was a new change. There was a new change.
01:36There was a new change that people had first time in Jammu and Kashmir,
01:41that the work board was working and the work was popular.
01:46The work was not popular here. We had no return to our employees.
01:49We didn't give any rent. We didn't give any rent.
01:52But small shopkeepers say the hikes were back-breaking. Some in Srinagar say their rents jumped by a thousand percent.
01:57But small shopkeepers say the hikes were back-breaking. Some in Srinagar say their rents jumped by a thousand percent.
02:05Newly elected Srinagar MP Rahula Mehdi said that transparency is not the problem.
02:21This is an infringement upon, encroachment upon the rights of Muslims, the religious rights of Muslims.
02:27This is an infringement upon, encroachment upon the rights of Muslims, the religious
02:33rights of Muslims.
02:34The Section 26 of the Constitution categorically says that any property belonging to a religious
02:42denomination, to a religion, has to be run and managed by the people of that religion.
02:50It is the Constitution.
02:51So you can have a mechanism to check the corruption.
02:55It is the system, monitored, created and monitored by the government itself.
03:00On April 7, as protests broke out in the assembly of the Waqq bill, Chief Minister Omar Abdullah
03:06posed with BGP Minister Kiran Rajuju in the Dilif Garden.
03:11The opposition criticised him.
03:13How can the Chief Minister welcome the very man who introduced a bill to disempower Muslims?
03:18They asked.
03:19The chaos exposed rifts even within Kashmir-based political parties.
03:24People of Jumayen Kashmir needed to express their opinion about this bill and Jumayen
03:29Kashmir assembly was one of the best platforms after the parliament to express their opinion
03:36through a democratically elected government representing the aspiration of the people of Jumayen Kashmir.
03:45The opposition MLA's accused the ruling National Conference of drama and failing to stand up for the Muslim community.
03:51Why it was not allowed to happen, I'm surprised, I don't have an answer for that.
03:56Opposition MLA's accused the ruling National Conference of drama and failing to stand up for the Muslim community.
04:03Rwama MLA Vahirpara called it a fixed match.
04:07I think the whole issue about Waqq in Jumayen Kashmir or the Waqq in whole of the India is
04:12that whether the custodianship of Muslim properties, Muslim assets, Muslim heritage, mosques, graveyards or Muslim ziyarths
04:21will lie with the Muslims or with the non-Muslims.
04:25This is not an issue about transparency. This is not an issue of bringing more eroding corruption in the Waqq properties.
04:32We may rationalize it, but there are Muslims who are capable of bringing transparency also.
04:37This is an issue of faith for us and we do not want non-Muslims to be fiddling with the issues of faith.
04:43The opposition also pointed to states like Tamil Nadu and Karnataka, which passed resolutions against the bill
04:50and West Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee for taking a clear stand.
04:54In comparison, they say the National Conference had betrayed Kashmiri Muslims.
04:59The JNK Assembly has 50 Muslim MLA's out of total 90.
05:04The NC spokesperson Tanvir Sadiq defended the party.
05:08The only assembly in this country which stood, which protested peacefully, which asked for opposing the Waqq amendment bill
05:18and for three days, there was a message from the assembly that not only the National Conference,
05:24the House opposes the Waqq amendment bill.
05:27And just after the House was adjourned, we went out and we said our fight here is over.
05:34Now our fight will be in the Supreme Court.
05:36This secular country has many religions.
05:39Why only single out Muslims in that? Nobody can answer me that much.
05:43The day the BJP or the people answer me this, why Muslims? Why not Christians? Why not Sikhs?
05:50Why not Hindus? Why not any other religion? Why only Muslims?
05:54This should tell you what the actual idea or what the actual scheme of things are.
06:00Change has come coitely to Kashmir's sacred spaces.
06:03But on the ground, between what's written in law and what lives in practice,
06:08the question remains, who controls the sacred?
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