Parliament panel on Waqf Bill receives over 1.2 crore responses
New Delhi (PTI): A parliamentary panel examining the Waqf (Amendment) Bill has received a staggering 1.2 crore email responses amid campaigns launched by rival groups to ratchet up support for their respective viewpoints regarding the draft law.
Parliamentary sources said the Joint Committee on the Waqf Amendment Bill, chaired by Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) leader Jagadambika Pal, has also received 75,000 responses with documents to support the respective views, prompting the panel to seek additional staff from the Lok Sabha Secretariat.
"We have deployed 15 additional personnel to go through the email responses and categorise and document those," one of the sources said.
Last month, the committee sought written suggestions from the general public, NGOs, experts, stakeholders and institutions on the Bill. In a statement, the committee asked people to send their comments to the joint secretary, Lok Sabha Secretariat, Room No. 440, Parliament House Annexe, New Delhi-110001 or mail those to jpcwaqf-lss@sansad.nic.in.
The committee is also embarking on a five-city tour to seek feedback from government officials, legal experts, Waqf Board members and community representatives.
The tour, beginning September 26, will take the committee to Mumbai, Ahmedabad, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bengaluru.
Through these consultations, the panel will examine key aspects of the Waqf (Amendment) Bill, including the digitisation of records, more rigorous auditing processes, enhanced legal measures for dealing with encroachments and the decentralisation of the Waqf management.
The committee's nationwide consultations are aimed at gathering feedback from government officials, legal experts, Waqf Board members and community representatives from the five states as well as from Union territories to ensure a comprehensive approach to reforming the Waqf Act.
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11 Bangladeshis arrested in Tripura for illegally entering India
Agartala (PTI): A total of 11 Bangladeshis have been arrested in Tripura for allegedly entering India without valid documents, GRP said on Sunday.
Three of their Indian facilitators have also been nabbed, a GRP officer said.
Acting on a tip-off, a GRP team nabbed the Bangladeshis at Agartala railway station on Saturday evening when they were planning to go to Chennai and Ahmedabad by train.
They were detained and taken to Agartala Government Railway Police (GRP) station and during interrogation, they confessed to having crossed the international border illegally and that they were planning to go to Chennai and Ahmedabad, officer-in-charge Tapan Das said.
He said the 11 Bangladeshis and three Indians were produced before a local court on Sunday seeking police remand.
