Nagpur: After land deals of Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh came under the scanner, it's now the state Animal Husbandry and Waqf Minister Anees Ahmad who’s facing the heat.
Documents available with CNN-IBN show Ahmad purchased the state Waqf Board's land worth at least Rs 4 crore for just Rs 1,763.
The 1.75-acre of land – that once belonged to Waqf board of Maharashtra – is now the property of the Mehemuda Shiksha and Mahila Gramin Vikas – a trust registered in Ahmad’s name and run by his wife.
“Anees Ahmed had used his authority as the Waqf minister to transfer 1.75 acres of land to his trust in 2003,” confirms a local Mohd Salim Asrafi.
The documents also reveal how the then collector of Nagpur brought this land under the Urban Land Ceilings Act so it could be transferred to the minister's trust without trouble.
But Ahmad denies these charges and is now pointing fingers at the Waqf Board.
“The Waqf board has misused its authority in many cases. I can assure you that there has been no such deal,” he says in his defence.
However, Waqf Board officials claim Ahmad had himself admitted to the dubious deal in private.
“He'd told me that he would vacate this land but he hasn't done that so far,” says Chairman of Maharashtra Waqf Board, M A Aziz.
The revelations have angered the Muslim community and strong reactions have started pouring in already.
“A fatwa needs to be issued against him. He has usurped land meant for the mosque,” says Secretary, Noori Masjid, Maharashtra Waqf Board Salim Chisti.
The IBN network had earlier exposed how the Maharashtra Industrial Development Corporation twisted rules to give a 55-acre plot to CM Vilasrao Deshmukh's charitable trust.
The latest expose on another minister's dubious land deal has put the state's Congress-led government in a spot.
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