Around 17,000 Waqf Board properties encroached in country: Government
New Delhi: Punjab has the highest number of Waqf Board properties under encroachment with such properties numbering around 17,000 across the country, the government told Parliament on Thursday.
In a written reply to BJP MP Ajay Nishad's question, Minorities Affairs minister Mukhtar Abbas Naqvi told the Lok Sabha that a total of 16,937 Waqf Board properties were under encroachment in the country, including 5,610 in Punjab.
Punjab is followed by Madhya Pradesh (3240), West Bengal (3082), Tamil Nadu(1335) and Karnataka (862), showed the data on 24 state Waqf Board properties furnished by the ministry.
In the national capita, the Delhi Waqf Board has 373 properties under encroachment.
To protect the Waqf Board properties and to prevent their encroachment, a dedicated online portal - WAMSI (Waqf Assets Management System of India) - has been developed, Naqvi said.
So far, 5,94,139 immovable Waqf properties have been registered on the portal, he added.
An intensive campaign for digitisation of records of Waqf estates was conducted from July to October, as a result of which 98.99 per cent records have been digitised, the minister said.
The state Waqf Boards have also been advised to undertake GIS mapping of their properties on top priority, he added.
Let the Truth be known. If you read VB and like VB, please be a VB Supporter and Help us deliver the Truth to one and all.
NEET student hangs self in Rajasthan's Sikar
Jaipur (PTI): A student preparing for the NEET examination allegedly committed suicide by hanging himself in a rented room in Rajasthan's Sikar on Friday, police said.
According to the police, the student allegedly hanged himself from a ceiling fan using his sister's scarf while one sister was attending coaching classes and the other was in the bathroom.
He had appeared in the NEET UG exam 2026, which was cancelled due to paper leak, they said.
Udyog Nagar SHO Rajesh Kumar said that the deceased, identified as Pradeep Meghwal, was a resident of Kanika ki Dhani village in Jhunjhunu's Gudha Gaudji area.
He had been living in a rented room in Sikar's Jaldhari Nagar area with his two sisters while preparing for NEET over the last three years.
His elder sister later found him hanging and informed the landlord and police after bringing him down, officials said.
The SHO said the body was kept at SK Hospital mortuary, and a postmortem had not been conducted.
The student's father, Rajesh Kumar Meghwal, told police that Pradeep's NEET examination had gone well and the family was expecting him to score around 650 marks.
Former Rajasthan deputy chief minister Sachin Pilot expressed grief over the incident and linked it to anxiety among students after reports of irregularities and paper leaks in NEET 2026.
Pilot said repeated paper leak incidents and cancellation of examinations were affecting students' mental health and demanded a time-bound investigation and strict action against those responsible.
