India has resorted to deploying troops to quell violent protests that have broken out in the state of West Bengal over legislation aimed at altering the management of Muslim-owned religious properties.
Police used tear gas against the thousands of demonstrators who gathered on Friday in the state’s Murshidabad district. Three people, including a child, were killed, police informed AFP on Saturday.
“So far, 118 people have been arrested in connection with the violence,” stated Jawed Shamim, a senior police official in the state, adding that at least 15 police officers sustained injuries.
The state’s high court has mandated the deployment of federal troops.
The Waqf amendment bill, which triggered the protests, was passed earlier this month following a contentious debate.
Across India, there are approximately two dozen Waqf boards, collectively owning around 900,000 acres, a multi-billion-dollar property portfolio that positions them as one of the largest landholders alongside the railways and defense forces.
Minister of Parliamentary Affairs Kiren Rijiju, who introduced the bill on Wednesday, asserted that it would curb corruption and mismanagement.
Amit Shah, the interior minister and a close aide to Modi, stated that the changes would help “apprehend individuals who lease out properties” for personal gain. “That money, which could be utilized for the development of minorities, is being misappropriated,” he said.
Shah clarified that non-Muslims, who will be included in the boards under the new legislation, will only be involved in “administrative” matters. However, opposition parties accuse the government of promoting “divisive politics” at the expense of India’s 200 million-strong Muslim minority.
According to the ruling Hindu nationalist government, the bill will enhance transparency in land management by holding accountable powerful Waqf boards, which oversee properties donated by Muslim charitable endowments.
However, the opposition has denounced the bill as a divisive “attack” on India’s Muslim minority. They have accused Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of attempting to curry favor with its right-wing Hindu support base.
Following the bill’s passage, Modi hailed it as a “watershed moment.”
Meanwhile, opposition Congress Party chief Rahul Gandhi stated that the bill was “aimed at Muslims today but establishes a precedent to target other communities in the future.”
Modi’s decade as prime minister has seen him cultivate an image as a strong advocate for the country’s majority Hindu faith.
His government revoked the constitutional autonomy of India’s Muslim-majority Indian Illegally Occupied Jammu and Kashmir and supported the construction of a temple on the site where a mosque stood for centuries before its demolition by Hindu extremists in 1992.
