Violence erupted in Kadakol village in Karnataka’s Haveri district on Wednesday, October 30, after a group of residents pelted stones at the houses of a few Muslim leaders fearing that their land would be taken over by the Waqf board. Five people, including a local Muslim leader, were injured in the attack.

Waqf refers to an endowment made by a Muslim individual for charitable, educational, or religious purposes. Union Minister and Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Prahlad Joshi had accused the Haveri Zilla Panchayat (ZP) CEO of issuing an order to hand over two temples to the Waqf committee.

The allegations in Haveri came after BJP MP Tejasvi Surya alleged that 1,500 acres of land in Vijayapura district’s Honavada were designated as Waqf properties and notices were issued to the farmers there. While Karnataka Law Minister HK Patil said the notices will be withdrawn, Industries Minister MB Patil, who is in charge of Vijayapura, said that the error cropped up due to a 1974 gazette notification. Similar allegations were raised in Kalaburagi, Bidar, and Shivamogga districts, with the BJP alleging that several lands belonging to farmers were being labelled as waqf property.

Deputy Commissioner of Haveri Vijaymahanthesh Danammavar told TNM that an internal circular was issued for the routine yearly process of mutating Waqf properties. Mutation is the legal process of updating the records of a property’s ownership in the Land Revenue Department after a change in ownership.

“There are three Waqf notified properties in the village. We had given a direction that where there is a Waqf property, it had to be mutated. Considering the issue persisting in the state, the Zilla Panchayat CEO had asked us to verify the documents. Residents got apprehensive about their properties being seized and resorted to stone pelting,” Vijaymahanthesh added. 

The three Waqf properties in question are masjids in the area, which also has a Hanuman temple, a burial ground, and a few houses. 

The violence began after rumours spread that properties around the Hanuman temple would soon be reclassified as Waqf land. Heated arguments among the residents then quickly escalated to stone pelting. 

The Deputy Commissioner said that the stone pelting happened despite the residents being told that notices were not issued and that there was no plan to take over any of the properties of the residents since the issue hadn’t reached the Panchayat yet. He added that there was tension brewing between the communities even before the Waqf land issue started.

“Stones were pelted at the houses of sitting Anjuman committee member, ex-committee member, and Anjuman chairman. The people who pelted stones thought that the minister was acting based on the request of the Anjuman members,” the Deputy Commissioner said.

Following the incident, the Deputy Commissioner and Anshu Kumar, the Superintendent of Police, intervened and deployed additional police forces to control the situation. Police also detained 32 people for questioning but released them later. According to the police, no complaint was filed and therefore they took suo moto action. Further investigation is underway.

Karnataka Minister for Housing, Waqf and Minority Welfare BZ Zameer Ahmed Khan has since clarified that the misunderstanding was a conspiracy hatched by the opposition BJP to mislead the farmers in the state by using the Waqf board’s name. He appealed to the farmers not to panic and assured them that their land would not be seized by the Waqf board.

“I can under no circumstances take away the land of regular citizens, how can I take away the land of farmers? The Chief Minister has said and I will also as the Waqf Minister say that in case any such notice is issued to the farmers, we will take it back. The issuing of these notices isn’t new. From 2008 to 2013 and from 2019 to 2023, the BJP government was there. Not hundreds but thousands of notices were issued. I will call a press meet when I go back to Bengaluru and show the documents,” the Minister said.

He also said that of the 1.12 lakh acres of land managed by Waqf previously, only 23,860 acres remain under its control, and that such steps were taken to ensure that at least the 23,860 acres remain under Waqf.