After the Sambhal and Badaun mosques, yet another mosque in Uttar Pradesh’s Muzaffarnagar town, has become a target after it was found that it was situated on the land that belonged to Pakistan’s first prime minister Liyaqat Ali Khan and was declared an ‘Enemy Property’ under the Enemy Property Act 1968.

A local leader of a saffron outfit, Rashtriya Hindu Shakti Sangathan, Sanjay Arora had lodged a complaint with the district authorities claiming that the mosque, which was situated before the Muzaffarnagar railway station, was built on the land which was in the name of Liyaqat Ali Khan and his family.

He claimed in his complaint that the mosque as well as four shops, which were also constructed beside it, were illegally built as the land was an ‘enemy property’ and as such should be acquired under the Enemy Property Act 1968.

The Enemy Property Act, 1968, governs the appropriation of properties in India belonging to Pakistani nationals. Introduced in the aftermath of the India-Pakistan War of 1965, the Act transfers ownership of such properties to the Custodian of Enemy Property for India, a designated government authority.

The Muslim side pleaded before the district authorities that the land had been donated to Waqf by Khan and his family in 1930.

Reportedly the matter was looked into by senior district officials and documents furnished by the Muslim side were examined. It was found that the land in question belonged to Liyaqat Ali Khan and his family. It was later declared an enemy property.

A report in Deccan Herald, citing its sources, revealed that the district officials were planning to send a notice to the caretaker of the mosque and the owners of the shops asking them to vacate the premises.
 
“We will adopt the legal process to get the land vacated if the occupants did not vacate it after the notice,’’ a district official in Muzaffarnagar told the newspaper.

The caretaker of the mosque Maulana Mujibul Islam said that he would move the court and challenge the order for vacating the land.

Arora, who was the convenor of the RHSS, said that his demand for declaring the premises enemy property was accepted by the authorities.

Several mosques, in the recent past, have landed in controversy after the violence during a court ordered survey of a mosque in Sambhal in which four people were killed and scores others injured.

A mosque in Badaun was embroiled in a legal battle after a Hindu outfit claimed that it had been constructed after demolishing a Shiva temple by the Muslim rulers and filed an application in the district court seeking its ownership.

Hindu outfits have also demanded removal of a mosque which is situated inside an old college in Varanasi.