Purchasing the land

In 1975, the residents of the area formed a tenant group and filed a petition in the Paravoor Munsiff Court. That case continued for 12 years. After a long 34 years, in 1987, as part of a compromise, the then residents paid a large sum to the Farook College management to purchase the land where they had been living for more than a century. They paid Rs 250 a cent. At that time, the land in many nearby areas cost less than Rs 100. However, as fishermen who had been living there for ages, they were forced to pay a heavy price as their occupations would be adversely affected. Subsequently, Hassankutty Sahib, secretary of the managing council of Farook College, signed around 280 land documents between 1989 and 1993.

Later events

The area developed over the next three decades. Apart from hundreds of concrete houses, many institutions, churches, roads, and bridges were built. The people who lived in peace suddenly had to confront another threat. A person who came to the village office to pay the land tax in January 2022 was unable to do so because the tahsildar issued an order that it was Waqf land. During the later investigation, the residents realised that the Waqf Board had already started such actions in 2019. However, none of them received a single notification.

It should be remembered that the Nisar Commission, formed by the V S Achuthanandan government to study encroachment on Waqf land, findings were not based on the complaint submitted by Farook College seeking the land back. A group called the Waqf Protection Committee has approached the court demanding the return of the land. A few people from Ernakulam were behind the association.

What political parties say

Minister for Sports and Waqf V Abdurahiman had recently said in a social media post that the government had “initiated deliberations to amicably solve the Munambam issue”. The Congress and the BJP, too, have taken up the issue with the Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan stating that his party’s declared stand was that the controversial land at Munambam was not Waqf land. “I had attended the meeting at Munambam to declare solidarity with the agitations. People were living in the area before land transactions and such land cannot be declared as Waqf property,” he said. Satheesan said that Waqf land should be unconditional but there are conditions in the documents of the land.

The CPI, too, had said that the official stand of the party was that nobody should be displaced from the land. Meanwhile, Union Minister Suresh Gopi lambasted both the Congress-led UDF and the ruling Left front for playing “vote-bank politics” on the issue.

Issue created by Waqf Board, govt: Satheesan

Kozhikode: The government is trying to give a space for the BJP as it did in the case of disrupting the Thrissur Pooram, said Leader of Opposition V D Satheesan. Speaking to reporters here on Tuesday, he said the voices of CPM and BJP leader Prakash Javadekar on the Munambam land issue have become the same. “What the Kerala Waqf Board chairman said is giving support to what the Javadekar said,” he said. Satheesan said the attempt is to create a communal division in the issue. “Now it is clear as to who are the villains in the game – it is the government and the Waqf Board. Our stand is that the people living in the area should be given title deeds that are permanent in nature,” he said.