Pinarayi delaying Munambam solution to deepen Muslim-Christian divide: Satheesan

Opposition Leader V D Satheesan on Tuesday said that Chief Minister Pinarayi Vijayan was deliberately delaying a solution to the Munambam land issue for the benefit of the BJP. "This is an issue that could be resolved in 10 minutes," Satheesan told reporters in Thiruvananthapuram.

Satheesan said that the Munambam issue, in which hundreds of families allegedly face eviction from what has been termed wakf land, had come up before the byelections were declared. He said a high-level meeting was originally called on November 16. "Now, after the Palakkad byelection date was postponed, the high-level meeting has been pushed to November 22, after the elections. It looks like the government wants to keep the issue live till after the elections so that the BJP can reap electoral dividends," Satheesan said.

He said that no complicated legal issues were involved in the Munambam issue. "All Muslim organisations, at a meeting called by the Muslim League, have said that it was not wakf land. No Muslim organisation has laid a claim over the land. Nor has any Muslim organisation called for the eviction of people living the land. Why, then, should this be turned into a Muslim-Christian issue? So the idea is to prolong a solution and deepen the communal divide so that the chasm can never be bridged even when a solution is found," Satheesan said.

The opposition leader said there were three reasons why the UDF has taken the stand that the Munamban land was not wakf land. One, there were people living in the land when the land was made wakf property. "A land already occupied cannot be made wakf land," Satheesan said. Two, there is a condition in the agreement that Farooq College will return the land to its owner if it was not used for educational purposes. "There will be no conditions attached to Wakf land. Wakf is permanent dedication," Satheesan said. Three, the Farook College management itself had said that this land was gifted land and not wakf land. He said during the UDF rule, the then Wakf Board chairman had said that it was un-Islamic to claim land purchased for money as wakf land.

Satheesan said that by delaying a solution, the LDF government was creating space for the Sangh Parivar to play communal politics. As further proof that it was providing cover to communal elements, the opposition leader said that the government had not taken a case, even registered an FIR, against Union Minister of State Suresh Gopi and BJP leader K Gopalakrishnan for making communally insensitive comments.

Gopi, while speaking at an election rally in Wayanad last week, had called wakf "barbaric". He referred to a video clip in the possession of Union Home Minister Amit Shah, which he claimed would reveal the atrocities committed in the name of the Wakf Act. Gopi wanted the clip to be widely shared. Gopalakrishnan gave wakf a potentially incendiary interpretation. He had said that if Vavar, the Muslim friend of Lord Ayyappa, laid claim to Sabarimala property then the Lord would have to vacate Sabarimala.

Satheesan said that the creation of Hindu and Muslim WhatsApp groups of IAS officers was yet another instance of the government providing a favourable environment for the Sangh Parivar to implement its communal agenda. "The same set of officers had created both the Hindu and Muslim WhatsApp groups. What action was taken against them? When the Muslim group was formed, Adeela Abdullah (IAS officer) had asked why such a group was created. She was then told that it was on instructions from above," Satheesan said.