The Taj Mahal was not a Waqf property and the management of Waqf properties - worth Rs.3 trillion all over India - was in a mess, said an educational NGO here Monday.
Friends for Education chairman Firoz Bakht Ahmed said: “Most of the state boards, deeply mired in rampant corruption, have gone bankrupt as rent collection and other recoveries have fallen to dangerously low levels.”
The Taj Mahal, said Bakht, represents the secular fabric of India and belongs to all the citizens in the nation. Putting it under the ownership of a religious platform would be “applying a dark sectarian paintbrush", he added.
The Taj had never been a Waqf property as it was duly notified in 1920 and confirmed in the Ancient Monuments and Archaeological Sites and Remains Act 1958, Bakht said.
This leaves no question about the ownership of the Taj as it belongs to the Indian government with the Archaelogical Survey of India (ASI) as custodian, he added.
India has around 250,000 Waqf properties, the largest in the world. Delhi has the major chunk of Waqf properties in India, but most of its properties have been allegedly illegally occupied, including the CGO Complex, Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium, Delhi Public School (Mathura Road) and many central government offices.
More: eians.com
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