There is a demand from minority community in the State to establish a new Haj House post bifurcation. Among all, residents from Kurnool and Vijayawada are pressing hard to establish the Haj House in their cities, said Mohd. Iqbal, Special Secretary Minority Welfare here on Wednesday.
Though nothing was finalised as yet, Vijayawada had an edge over Kurnool given the infrastructure especially airport connectivity. Once a new Haj House would be established, the Central Haj Committee would also be dividing the Haj pilgrimage quota between Andhra Pradesh and Telangana, he explained at a press conference here.
Post bifurcation, the Minority Welfare department was laying more emphasis on protecting Wakf lands and assets in the State. There are nearly 67,000 acres of Wakf lands in the Andhra Pradesh, of which, 60 per cent were encroached or caught up in legal wrangles. In Krishna district, there more than 2600 acres of wakf lands, of these nearly 1200 acres were free from encroachments and the rest were occupied, he said. It was high time to protect the wakf lands and towards this end, a District Protection Committee with district Collector as its chairman would be formed and DRO would be the District Wakf Officer. The Committee will have to review the status of wakf lands and assets every month and initiate necessary action, said Mr. Iqbal.
In case of encroachments, authorities were instructed to initiate criminal action against those involved in the cases and then take up eviction works.
On Wednesday, more than 60 pilgrims from the city were duped by a private travel agency on the pretext of taking them to Haj pilgrimage. It is reported that the travel agency representatives collected money from the pilgrims and took them to Shamshabad airport in Hyderabad and later absconded from the airport.
When the issue was raised before Mr. Iqbal, he said police should keep a vigil on such agencies and make sure such incidents did not occur.
