Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath speaks during the birth anniversary celebrations of Nishad King Guhya, in Prayagraj district, Uttar Pradesh, Thursday, April 3, 2025.
Credit: PTI Photo
Lucknow: Amid the raging controversy over the contentious Waqf (Amendment) Bill 2025, which was passed by the Lok Sabha on Wednesday and was tabled in the Rajya Sabha on Thursday, Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Yogi Adityanath accused the Waqf Board of ‘encroaching’ public lands in the state and said that its ‘wild claims’ would no longer be ‘tolerated’.
Speaking at a function in Prayagraj on Thursday, Adityanath said that the Waqf Board had been making ‘baseless’ claims over lands across cities.
‘’We will now not tolerate the wild claims of the Waqf Board on lands at historical places,’’ he added.
‘’During the Maha Kumbh also, the Waqf Board had claimed that the land on which the event was held belonged to them, forcing us to ask if the Waqf Board had turned into a land mafia,’’ the chief minister said.
The UP government has sought a report from the district magistrates about the public properties allegedly illegally claimed by the Waqf Board in their districts.
Adityanath said that his government had removed encroachments on government properties at many places. ‘’The sacred land associated with the Nishadraj (the king of the Nishads, the boatmen, whose capital was Shringverpura in Prayagraj district) was also encroached in the name of Waqf property….it will not continue,’’ he said.
Barely a couple of days back, UP minister and president of the Nishad Party, an alliance partner of the BJP, Sanjay Nishad had threatened to ‘remove’ a mosque, which was situated very close to the Nishadraj Fort at Shringverpur.
‘’I appeal to the Muslims to remove the mosque…if the Nishads get angry, they will remove the Mosque by force,’’ he had said.